Carol Bowman, one of the Ojo’s premier travel writers, climbs
into the high country of Peru and finds amidst the spectacular
vistas much to exhilarate the spirit but sadden the soul.

8
Cover by Cuca Velarde

14 THEATER
Jonny Kottler reviews a mini-play written and starring Ed Tasca, an homage
to FDR, whom most Americans consider the greatest president of the 20th
century.

23 GRINGO VIBRATION
William Hayden, after two years in
San Blas, now moves on to discover
more of Mexico. He calls the move like
going on “without his training wheels.”

32 MEXICAN CUSTOMS
Gloria Marthai dwells on one of the
most beloved customs in Mexico,
which is its answer to “Happy Birthday.”

36 FAREWELL & WELCOME
We say goodbye to Shelley Edson
and welcome Tod Jonson and Barbara Clippinger as the new Co-editors
of Lakeside Living, which has long
been one of the Ojo’s most popular
columns.

72 DECISIONS
Roberta Rich, whose novel Midwife of
Venice is a best-seller, writes about
the abrupt way she and husband decided to move to Mexico.

Reserva al Título de Derechos de
Autor 04-2007-111412131300-102 Control
14301. Permisos otorgados por la Secretaría de Gobernación (EXP. 1/432 “88”/5651
de 2 de junio de 1993) y SEP (Reserva
171.94 control 14301) del 15 de enero de
1994.
Distribución: Hidalgo 223 Chapala, Jalisco, México.
All contents are fully protected by copyright
and may not be reproduced without the
written consent of El Ojo del Lago. Opinions
expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the Publisher or the
Editor, nor are we responsible for the claims
made by our advertisers. We welcome letters, which should include name, address
and telephone number.

4

COVER STORY

PUBLISHER

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

COLUMNS THIS MONTH
6

Editor’s Page

10

Uncommon Sense

11

Bridge by Lake

13

Joyful Musings

16

Welcome to Mexico

18

Child of Month

22

Anyone Train Dog

26

Hearts at Work

28

Viva Vida Loca

30

New Lease on Life

38

From the Grapevine

40

Thunder on Right

42

Lakeside Living

44

Magnificent Mexico

60

The Poet’s Niche

64

Focus on Art

68

Front Row Center

70

Stay Healthy

81

LCS Newsletter

LAKESIDE LIVING

 D IRE C TOR Y 

42
MAGNIFICENT MEXICO

VOLUME 28 NUMBER 7

44

Saw you in the Ojo

5

Editor’s Page
By Alejandro Grattan-Dominguez

(

A

few months
ago,
the
ten-year
war in Iraq finally came
to an end. Total cost: More th
than
4,500 U.S. dead, tens of thousands
of wounded (including PTSD), many
thousands permanently maimed,
250,000 Iraqi dead, millions homeless and an 800 Billion Dollar cost
to the American taxpayer. No weapons of mass destruction were ever
found. Given that, we thought our
readers might be interested in an
Ojo editorial that we first published
in November of 2002.)
Careening Toward Catastrophe
During the last presidential
campaign, this column opined that
George W. Bush was the least qualified Republican candidate in fifty
years. The point was easily made
when one compared him with far
more seasoned leaders such as
Eisenhower, Nixon and even Bush’s
own father. Since then, nothing
Bush the Younger has done has
caused us to alter that evaluation.
Yet even given his lackluster credentials, we cannot believe that he
is sincere in his desire to launch a
preemptive attack on another nation, and then commit the US to a
long and potentially hideously expensive effort to recreate Iraq in our
own image. Has Bush not heard the
howls of protest from the great majority of the countries of the world,
the wise words of caution from
prominent members of his own
party, as well as from many military
men who distinguished themselves
in the Gulf War?
Yet he has been deaf to all reasonable objections, whose specifics
include:
• Even given that Iraq possesses
such awesome weapons, it cannot deliver them more than a
few hundred miles—so where
is this “mortal threat” that Bush
raves about?
• Some weapons we know Iraq
has (such as nerve gas), but for
the past eleven years it has not

6

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

used them against us or our allies. Why—because it knows that
soon thereafter Baghdad would
be turned into a pile of rubble.
Is Bush even vaguely aware that
if the US occupies Iraq, we will
replace Saddam, a Sunni, with a
Shia (whose party compose the
overwhelming majority and thus
would certainly win in a democratically-held election) and
thereby make Iraq the natural
ally of the Shia in Iran—a country that unlike Iraq can severely
damage the United States!?
What is this “mortal threat” now
that wasn’t there a year ago?
Why all the rush? Could it be that
Bush’s timetable has something
to do with the US mid-term elections?
Why can’t Bush handle this in
the same bloodless, brilliant way
that JFK settled the Cuban Missile Crisis—a threat a hundred
times more dangerous than anything Iraq could ever pose?
Why Iraq, and not Iran—which is
a much stronger country with far
better weapons? Then what—
North Korea, Syria, China, Cuba?
Has Bush even the foggiest of
what this misadventure will
cost? Independent estimates
start at 100 Billion, and go as
high as double that figure! Bush
says it will cost only some 200
million—and that Iraqi oil will
pay the entire cost.
Why is Bush so against the idea
of sending UN inspectors back
in? If they find no WMD, war
might be averted; if they do, the
effort will help to marshal other
nations to Bush’s cause.
Why is Bush diverting military
resources from fighting the AlQaeda in Afghanistan, which
poses a far more serious threat
to the US than Iraq? Could it be

that the effort has stalled, and
hence offers nowhere near as
good a campaign issue as an allout invasion?
Surely this is a smokescreen
to obscure a faltering economy, a
nose-diving stock market, a squandered surplus, all the corporate
scandals (including those tainting
even the president and his VP), and
that Bush has made good on almost
none of his campaign promises?
But if he is indeed serious, the
following is instructive: during
the Mexican Revolution, President
Woodrow Wilson was visited by a
group of U.S. senators, as well as several titans of business. They wanted
him to send an army to Mexico to
“straighten out those revolutionary bastards” who were threatening
U.S. business interests.
Wilson offered them a deal. If
each man would allow a son or
grandson to be in the first brigade
sent to Mexico, he would reluctantly accede to their demands. Wilson
never heard from anyone in the
group again.
Bush has two daughters of military age. If he will “volunteer” them
for action in Iraq, tens of millions of
skeptics like me might finally take
him seriously. Hell, I’ll sign up my-

self, even if I have to roll into the
recruitment office in a wheelchair.
But don’t stay underwater waiting
for anything like all this to happen.
(Postscript: Many of the same
bellicose voices that bullied the
American people into the catastrophic ten-year war in Iraq are now clamoring for another war
against Iran, which
is also “suspected of
having weapons of
mass destruction.” To
indulge in a redundancy, it is déjà vu all
Alejandro Grattan
over again.)

Saw you in the Ojo

7

LIFE ON THE ALTIPLANO
By Carol L. Bowman

O

ur driver, Eber and Walter, our tour leader, had
no choice. After we endured a jarring one hour ride on a
rutted dirt road, the familiar trail ended abruptly. Boulders placed across
the dusty path signaled an impasse
ahead. A make-shift route wandered
off to the right and tire marks furrowed into the earth suggested that
adventurers before us had paved
a new way. “Vamonos,” we chimed,
with that mixture of fear and excitement the unknown brings. The truth
was, we were lost and had no idea
where this unexplored detour would
take us.
In this desolate Peruvian altiplano, at 11,500 feet, the only visible landmark, Veronica, guided us
onward like a daytime constellation.
The highest snow-capped glacier in
the Cordillera Urubamba range of the
Andes, topping 19, 000 feet, Veronica
had become our traveling companion; no longer towering above us but
now just slightly taller, like an older
sister.
Eber maneuvered the van around
huge boulders, upward to a flat mesa.
Along the steel blue horizon, small
dots, looking like a distant village,
popped into view; we hoped someone there could provide directions
to our intended destination, Pachar,
Peru.
We came upon a mere lad walking
his burro; a double basket bulging
with chicha-filled skins, hung over
the mule’s back. Walter informed us
that Andean highlanders have few
sources of potable water; often family members, including children, drink
the 2% alcohol-fermented corn mash
as their only liquid intake.
This traveling ‘chicha distributor’
refreshes thirsty farmers he encounters by chance. The young salesman,
deprived of human interaction on his
lonely route, greeted our interlude
with relief. He soaked up every syllable as Walter spoke to him in Quechua. Today, he had already walked for
five hours by the sun, but he hadn’t

8

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

seen one soul. I felt a twinge of abandonment as the van sped away leaving man and beast stranded in their
isolation. A day in the life of an Andean Highlander.
The stark terrain changed, as
sheep, goats and pigs hogged the
roadway. We edged toward the cluster of adobe-brick huts, one displaying a hand-carved pole with a torn
red cloth attached to the end, fluttering in the rarefied air. The flag signifies, ‘chicha today’ and remains the
universal symbol in Peru to invite
passers-by to stop for a cup of brew.
We saw three men manually making adobe bricks in a field behind
a house. Eber stopped the van and
Walter trudged over to ask if he and
ten tourists in his charge could watch
the process. Twenty-three year old
property owner, Miguel, nodded his
consent.
A rare opportunity to interact
with a local family unfolded, as we
walked to the back of the two-story
casa. Blue tarps, blocking icy winds
and rain, covered the home’s paneless windows. In the scruffy yard area,
plastic gas cans and five-gallon buckets for carrying water were strewn
about. Flimsy, frayed wires attached
to the house and stretched from a
hand hewn pole, leaning like Pisa,
suggested intermittent electricity.
What a scene. Gringos bundled up
in alpaca scarves, gloves and thermal
jackets to protect against the Peruvian winter chill, faced members of
a Highland family, each wearing layers of mismatched clothing, but no
coats. After a flurry of conversation
in Quechua, Walter introduced us to
Miguel’s mother, 83 year-old grandmother, and 20 year-old wife, Nayely.
We eyed each other with inquisitive
stares.
Dulce, Nayely’s three year old
daughter, hid behind her mother and
peeked around at these strangers,
her knitted cap pulled tight, revealing smudged, puffy cheeks and large
black eyes. I asked Nayely in Spanish,
“Han encontrado extranjeros antes?”

(Have you ever met foreigners before?)
“Nunca. Es la primera vez,” (Never,
it’s the first time). The enormity of
the moment sank in; the fruits of ‘being lost’ revealed. Mamá sitting on
the hard cold earth and grandma
cushioned atop a pile of sheep skins,
their petticoats and wool skirts furled
around them, peeled dehydrated potatoes called moras and sliced them
into pink plastic tubs in preparation
of the day’s starchy soup.
I peered up at the clay-tiled roof
and viewed a crude TV antenna. Nayely announced, with a hint of pride,
that they receive two TV stations
from Cuzco. “Me gusta las telenovelas,”
she giggled. Watching soap operas is
a universal pastime for young Latina
women. The house had no running
water, but it had telenovelas.
Nayely explained that Miguel’s
parents gave them this farm land as
a wedding present. They were building a dining room off the kitchen, to
protect the family from the harsh elements of the altiplano. So far, of the
3000 adobe bricks needed, Miguel
and his neighbors had only finished
500. Nayely pointed to the blocks
baking in the sun.
We drifted to the field’s edge to
observe the brick-making process.
After turning over the soil by hand,
Miguel and company, made mushy,
dense clay, with water carried in plastic buckets from the pond half a mile
away. They added straw to the mix,
rolled up their pant legs, removed
their shoes and mixed the mud and
straw together with bare feet, akin to
stomping grapes. Miguel shoveled
the adobe into a brick mold, leveled it
off as if measuring flour and removed
the form; only 2499 more to go, knee
deep in cold clay. A day in the life of
an Andean farmer.
With Miguel’s directions, Eber
intersected the road to Pachar and
after two jostled hours, we rumbled
into town. A barricade of 9 and 10
year-old fifth graders from the Raqchi School greeted us, jumping and
squealing with anticipation of our
visit. The small-group tour company,
with whom we were exploring Peru,
donates $10 US per traveler to this
high-in-the-sky, school. Former Peruvian President Fujimori, during
his pre-scandal first term, ordered
schools to be built throughout the
Andean highland. A 6th grade education became mandatory. Some children walk an hour one way to meet
this requirement.
As each of us stepped from the
van, a child waited to take our hand
and steal our hearts. Tiny Naisha, so
small for 10, clasped mine tightly. My
gold and silver ringed fingers rubbed

against the built-up dirt, ground into
her fragile hand. A blue and yellow
uniform showed strain from daily
wear and no water to wash it. The
anxious smile she wore and her intense longing for attention I sensed,
made this moment more powerful for me, than the exhilaration of
climbing Machu Picchu.
The children led us into the simple concrete building and frigid classroom and offered wee chairs. Workmen, finishing the school’s first indoor
bathroom with funds from the tour’s
foundation, hammered away in the
adjacent room. The teacher, whose
daily commute involves a one-hour
bus from Urubamba and a mile walk
from her drop-off point, looked on,
proud of her eager students.
As Naisha paged through her
school notebook pointing out her
‘favorite’ subjects, she spun my silver
bracelet round and round, fascinated
by its sparkly finish. Although the
people in this region speak Quechua,
the children learn Spanish in school
and in preparation for our visit, they
mastered some English words. Remnants of math class chalked on the
blackboard, the square root of 81 and
complicated algebraic equations, revealed the depth of their studies.
No water, no bathroom, no heat,
one computer and one TV for the entire school; yet 5th graders can compute square root. I pondered if these
children will ever use algebra.
Being able to communicate with
Naisha in Spanish offered me a clearer picture of her life. She lives with
her parents and seven siblings in a
two-room, adobe-brick house on the
edge of town. Despite a lack of experience around foreigners, each child
stood in front of the class, poised
from practice, and gave his or her
name and desired adult occupation.
When Naisha’s turn came, it was the
only time she let go of my hand. She
wants to be a tour guide. A day in the
life of an Andean child.

n January, at the weekly LCS
Learning Seminar, we viewed
a TED podcast from Sidney by
Rachel Botsman, author of What’s
Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. In a nutshell, she is
on a mission to sell the concept of resource sharing rather than individual
ownership. She asks, for example, how
much sense it makes that many of us
own a vehicle which sits idle for 23
hours a day? Wouldn’t it make more
sense to share the expense of a vehicle
and have it be used by more than one
family? Well yes, maybe.
In the rousing discussion which
followed the presentation, although
many people endorsed the idea of collaborative consumption, many were
also skeptical about its practicality and
even its possible effect on an alreadyfragile economy. How, in other words,
could we organize car-sharing so it
would be convenient and workable?
And to what degree would it lower car
sales and slow down the economy?
Practical concerns, to be sure.
Botsman suggests, however, that,
like it or not, we are already heading
in this direction. In part it’s a generational movement driven by the open
sharing opportunities on the Internet.
The young “gen-xers” have wholeheartedly embraced the sharing culture with
open-source software and on-line music and movie sharing. Even those of us
in the older generation use collaborative consumption in the form of Wikipedia and libraries.
With the worldwide economic
downturn and the pressure that a rising population puts on the environ-

10

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Bill Frayer
ment, Botsman argues that we have
little choice but to move from what
she calls “ultra consumption” to collaborative consumption. Why should
we own so much “stuff ” that we only
use occasionally. Usually, she points
out, we don’t really need the object as
much as the capability or experience it
provides. Most of us own electric drills
which may only be used a few hours in
our lifetime. We don’t really need a drill.
What we need is a hole! Likewise, we
don’t need CD’s; we just want the music. We may not need a car if we could
have reliable transportation.
Entrepreneurs are already responding. There are a number of car/ride
sharing companies allowing consumers to get transportation without owning a vehicle. Websites like Swaptree
are already allowing consumers to
swap items. Companies like EBay and
Craig’s List have been making money
for years putting consumers in touch
with people who have items to sell or
swap.
Of course, people enjoy owning
things, and many would not find such
“sharing” arrangements appealing. Yet,
as resources become more scarce, and
more expensive, we may see a resurgence in such old collaborative concepts like public transportation systems which would allow more families
to make the choice to avoid car ownership.
Perhaps our “ownership” society
is going to fade, to some degree. The
younger generations care just as much
about quality of life but seem to be
more content to share resources and
avoid owning as many things. For a
long time, status has been demonstrated through ownership. Perhaps this era
is ending, as more people decide to live
in rental units, participate in communal
child care and take advantage of jobsharing opportunities.
If this happens, maybe our idea of
what brings us status may change as
well. We may no longer be able to impress people by owning lots of items
which we use only rarely. Perhaps our
future status might be enhanced by
consuming less and living in communities which share recreational space,
laundry facilities, and even transportation.

BRIDGE
B
RIDGE B
BY
Y THE
THE LAKE
LAKE
By Ken Masson

T

he Annual Ajijic Sectional Tournament was once
again held in the Hotel Real
de Chapala in mid-February. With
a good mixture of local players and
visitors from other parts of Mexico and
abroad the friendliness and good competition for which this event is known
was evident once again.
As always, there was a great selection of hands to provide aficionados
with hours of discussion over margaritas and cervezas after each session had
ended. Norm Smith gave me the illustrated deal which he and his wife Fran
had the pleasure (!) of playing against
Ed Lewis and Mary Anderson in one of
the pairs events.
Mary dealt and opened 1 club
which would probably be the choice
of most players holding these cards.
Fran passed and Ed bid 1 spade which
proved to be a headache for Norm as
this was his best suit in a hand holding 21 high card points. This is one
of bridge’s imponderables: what to
do when you hold more than half the
deck in your own hand and both opponents are bidding freely? Norm felt
he could hardly pass with this monster
so he started with a double, hoping to
somehow reach a workable contract
with his partner, or at least push the
opponents beyond their limit.
Mary rebid her good seven-card
suit and Fran passed again, uninspired
to action by her pitiful, pointless collection. When Ed now showed his
heart suit, Norm began to wonder just
how many points were in this deal.
Not seeing any clear way to continue
bidding, Norm reluctantly decided to
pass. However, to his astonishment,
rather than letting the auction die at a
low level, Mary’s next call was to jump

all the way to 6 hearts!
How could this be, thought Norm?
I have more points than Ed and Mary
combined, surely there is no way they
can make a small slam? When the bidding got back to him, Norm quickly
doubled and led the diamond ace.
The dummy did not prove to be a
thing of beauty for the Smith partnership. Ed ruffed the opening lead, drew
trumps in two rounds, set up six club
winners with one ruff and eventually
made his thirteenth trick by trumping
dummy’s solitary spade in his hand.
Only an opening lead of a high spade
could have salvaged one trick for the
defense but Norm had naturally led
from his shorter suit believing it was
less likely to be ruffed.
North-South’s 19 high card points
had triumphed over East-West’s 21
showing perhaps an extreme example
of the power of distribution. The 5-5
trump fit, a near-solid 7 card club suit
and a void in each hand made for an
unbeatable combination. Of course it
also took two highly skilled players to
realize the potential of the cards they
were holding that got them to the
slam in the first place.
Norm and Fran emerged from this
battle bloodied but unbowed. It is a
measure of their character that they
found humour in this debacle which
will stand them in good stead in future
contests. Who knows, the next making
slam with 19 points
that comes along
may be dealt to the
Smiths!
Questions
or
comments: email:
masson.ken@
gmail.com
Ken Masson

Saw you in the Ojo 11

Letter to the Editor
Dear Sir:
The January issue of El Ojo Del Lago
contains letters to the editor that present incomplete explanations and/or misleading representations of the facts. One
writer misleadingly infers that Google,
in its official capacity, makes specific
opinionated statements about a variety
of issues, which of course Google never
does. Google is a repository of billions of
opinions posted by millions of people or
organizations that can state just about
anything they want to. This does not
mean that Google endorses or agrees
with those opinions.
As an example, the writer says that
Google states that the Washington Post
was described as “Pravda on the Potomac”. That was nothing more than
someone’s opinion posted on Google
and certainly didn’t necessarily reflect
what Google officially may or may not
believe. Another writer in response to
what he believes has been misinformation about the similarity of benefits
available to Federal employees as well as
members of Congress (who are also Federal employees) lists the benefits that are
similar for both groups (with some major

12

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

exceptions as he notes).
As far as the writer’s list of items go,
he is correct, but he fails to list some very
important items that benefit members
of Congress that are not applicable to
regular Federal employees. Specifically,
members of Congress are vested after
just 5 years of service and a full pension is
available to members 62 years of age after just 5 years of service, 50 years of age
after 20 years of service, or any age after
25 years of service. As a retired Federal
employee I can state that these generous
conditions for retirement are not available to regular Federal employees.
In addition, members of Congress
can get free outpatient care at military
hospitals in the Washington, DC area (Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD and
Walter Reed Army Hospital in DC (which
may be closed at some time in the future). By the way, this information can be
obtained through Google.
Sincerely,
Frank Mallalieu

n my counseling practice I
see many couples who come
in hoping to create a more
harmonious relationship. I can help
them improve their communication
skills. I can help them safely discuss
delicate or difficult issues. I can help
them get more in touch with their
own feelings and become more empathic to their partner’s feelings. Together we can explore and discover
what might be the real issue underlying frequent petty arguments. These
are all skills that can be taught and
learned.
But a crucial factor in a good relationship is something that cannot
be taught: compatibility. The dictionary defines compatibility as “being
capable of existing or performing in
harmonious, agreeable, or congenial
combination with another or others.”
Not everyone is compatible with everyone else. More importantly, we are
not always compatible with those to
whom we are initially attracted.
Couples get together for a variety of reasons. Sexual attraction, that
thing we call “chemistry,” is often the
first draw. A handsome or beautiful
new someone with that special spark
can fuel passion and make your heart
go pitter-patter – for awhile.
When couples are dating, they
generally get together and do something. They both may enjoy similar
activities and have fun doing them
together – for awhile. The sex is good
and you enjoy doing things together—this must be love, right? Well,
sometimes love just isn’t enough.
A long-term committed relationship is more about being together
than doing together. Values, perspective, and life goals determine a couple’s compatibility far more than hot
sex and enjoying the same activities.
It’s great if you both love to travel or
go bird-watching, but if one of you
values family above all else while the
other treasures independence, you
are in trouble from the get-go.
Conflicting values, standards, morals, ethics, and ideals with your partner makes compatibility impossible.
For example, if you and your partner
have major differences in deeply held
religious convictions or beliefs about

spending money, then compatibility
reaches an impasse. Things that don’t
matter very much while you’re dating can become deal-breakers when
you’re trying to build a life together.
Compatibility is vital for romance
to sustain itself over the years. If daily
life is filled with frequent disagreements, you may not feel very romantic
because you’re often harboring angry
feelings. You don’t have to agree on
everything, but you do have to feel
respected, safe, and accepted. This is
the foundation upon which trust is
built.
If you’re exploring a new relationship, avoid trouble down the road by
talking about those deeply held beliefs that guide how you live your life.
It is much more effective to choose a
compatible partner now than it is to
“fix” something that is “broken” later.
Find out if you share basic values and
life goals. If you don’t hold mutual values, go ahead and enjoy dating if you
like, but don’t expect you’ll be able to
live together long-term without a lot
of bumps and disagreements.
What if you’re already in a longterm marriage and you’ve discovered
you’re incompatible? You have three
realistic options: One, you can learn
to accept things as they are. Two, you
can work on yourself and the relationship. Three, you can leave the relationship. And of course, there’s option
four: you can stay and be miserable.
Option four really isn’t much fun,
so (to paraphrase the Serenity Prayer)
I suggest learning to accept the things
you cannot change and working hard
to change the things you can. Much
of the wisdom to know the difference
is in remembering that you can only
change yourself. It’s unreasonable to
demand that another person change
when they don’t want to.
The key in relationships is not finding someone to love, but in learning
to love that someone you find. Find
someone who shares your core values
and ideals, and learning to love each
other will be a breeze.
Editor’s Note: Joy is a practicing
psychotherapist in Riberas. She can
be contacted at joy@dunstan.org or
765-4988. Check out her new website:
http://joydunstan.weebly.com.

Saw you in the Ojo 13

A Stage Review of FDR: the Man
Who Gave America its Future
By Ed Tasca
Reviewed by J. C. Kottler

I

n honor of Franklyn Delano
Roosevelt’s 130th Birthday celebration, the Lake Chapala Chapter of Democrats Abroad presented a
marvelous celebration of his life, the
one act play, FDR: the Man who Gave
America its Future. It was no easy task to
condense 20 years in only 20 minutes.
Writer Ed Tasca solved this problem
by giving thematic unity to the play,
concentrating on FDR’s unflinching optimism in the face of intractable problems.
FDR bravely conquered one Gargantuan
dilemma after another, fighting through
disabling polio, unwinable elections,
the Great Depression, and WWII. FDR’s
outstanding quality was his unflinching
optimism, and this is what the play celebrates. The play’s writing was constantly
entertaining, humorous, and surprising
in its twists and turns.
The cast was uniformly excellent.
Ed Tasca obviously loved playing FDR,
and had the time of his life portraying
him. FDR loved the center stage, a one
man party who made other politicians
look like they were attending a wake by
comparison. Mr. Tasca was so enamored
with the role that after the play was over,
he sat in the wheelchair, not in a regular
chair. I had to remind him that he wasn’t
FDR anymore. Mr. Tasca sighed and then
smiled. What could be more fun than becoming the spirit of FDR?
Valerie Siegel, as Eleanor Roosevelt,
captured her personality, proper but
caring, accommodating yet incisive. I
truly believed she was Eleanor Roosevelt,
FDR’s constant support, his “eyes and
ears” to the public, and, just as important,
his conscience.
Harry Walker gave an intelligent reading as Harry Hopkins, emphasizing his
humanity and world weary attention to
detail. As the lesser known Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet member,
Curly Lieberman gave an incisive performance, concentrating on her industriousness with just a touch of maitronliness. Fred Koesling, as the narrator, set
the proper tone by sounding just like a
narrator from a 1930s newsreel.
Director Betty Lloyd Robinson kept
the action moving briskly, keeping the
attention on character. The consistent
excellence of the performers is a sure
sign of a good director.
The play starts with an introduction to the roaring 20’s, and what better

14

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

way to do it than with a Charleston. The
dancers, Alexis Huff and Valerie Jones,
are obviously professionals. They wowed
the audience, ably supported by Daphne
Peerless.
The play then shifts to a week before
the 1936 election. The opposition is calling Roosevelt a “socialist“ (reminding
us of the same charge against Obama).
The author humorously references many
modern day problems to FDR‘s problems, emphasizing their universality.
Pollsters have decided that Roosevelt
doesn’t have a chance in the coming
election. Eleanor is concerned. Secretary of Labor Perkins is downright pessimistic. But Franklyn Delano Roosevelt
never doubts the outcome, his infectious
optimism overcoming all obstacles.
The play points out that the greatness
of Roosevelt comes from the strength of
his character, like our other greatest Presidents, Washington and Lincoln. Their
character traits were amazingly different. Washington was the military man
with so much integrity that he refused
being King of the Americas. Lincoln, the
most intelligent of the three, suffered
from depression, which he carefully kept
from the public. Roosevelt was the aristocrat who “betrayed his class.” His radiant personality sustained him and the
entire nation through many of its darkest
days. They all had the most important
quality in a President, the ability to never
lose sight of the ultimate goal, no matter
what the secondary problems. Whether
it was starting a new nation, preventing
that nation from breaking up, or saving
that nation from the Great Depression
and Nazis, our three greatest Presidents
never gave up. They never lost sight of
their ultimate goal.
Luckily, FDR: the Man who Gave
America its Future, never lost sight of
its ultimate goal, quality entertainment.
A longer version of the play will be performed in Puerto Vallarta in May.

Saw you in the Ojo 15

By Victoria Schmidt
Maintaining Perspective

O

ver the holidays friends
of mine had a very disturbing
experience.
They left for 24 hours to visit with
family in a nearby town. Upon returning they discovered their home
had been broken into and that all
of their computers, televisions and
electronics had been stolen.
It was such a shock. With the
economy so bad, burglaries have
been on the rise. Even increased
police patrols haven’t seemed to
stop the break-ins. My friend said
that she was angry and felt violated, and didn’t even feel safe in her
own home. She blamed the police
and said they didn’t care. She was
so upset that she and her husband
began to discuss moving.
Did I tell you my friend lives in
Minnesota? She lives in a community the same size as Lakeside. This
whole thing sounded familiar. So I
went online and started comparing the statistics for crimes. Based
on the statistics, in some categories Lakside is running ahead of the
curve, but in others we are far below the curve. On average we are
equal.
Robberies, assaults, burglaries,
and thefts (including auto) as a total ran at 6282 over the previous six
years in that Minnesota community. This is a peaceful city--it was
awarded the title of “All American
City.” I’d lived there once, I felt perfectly safe. Yet there was the truth
in black and white.
That got me to thinking about
crime here. I don’t believe that
crime is worse here, although I do
believe there has been an increase
in crimes of property because the
economy is so bad in Mexico. A
poor economy creates higher crime
statistics in any country.
As ex-pats, we are in the minority here in Mexico, and I think that
makes us feel vulnerable. Anyone
feels vulnerable and violated when
they or their friends become victims of crime, but perhaps because

16

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

we are foreigners, and in the minority, and because we sometimes find
it difficult to communicate our frustrations and fears, we tend to see
crime disproportionately.
The majority of Mexican citizens and the police who work to
protect them, are good people doing the best they can with limited
resources. We can make ourselves
feel safer by being aware. The Mexican government has recently instituted a new crime tip line based on
the Crime Stopper model. Dial 01800-839-1416. The call is anonymously routed to a bilingual operator in Canada, and the call cannot
be traced. If you see a crime, or are
suspicious of some wrongdoing, report it. If you are a victim of crime,
file a report with the Ministrio Publico. Become familiar with the system and how it works. Know emergency telephone numbers, and
practice “situational awareness” to
protect yourself. Situational awareness means paying attention to
what goes on around you. New
neighbors with a lot of strangers
going in and out constantly? Could
be innocent, or it might not be.
Alert the tip line and let the authorities check it out.
Know your safety areas. Sometimes we get caught up in the
charm and pleasantries of life here,
and forget to be diligent. Don’t
leave your wallet or purse unattended, don’t wear flashy jewelry,
carry only the amount of cash you
need for your day. Learn to be careful--not afraid.
Here at Lakeside those responsible for the latest burglaries have
been caught. The police are doing their job. Stay aware, and enjoy
your life at Lakeside, it is a wonderful place to live. I
remind myself that
crime is a fact of life,
both in Mexico, and
a sleepy little “All
American” town in
Minnesota.
Victoria Schmidt

WHERE I’VE BEEN
Courtesy of John Marshall

I

have been in many
places, but I’ve never
been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can’t go alone.
You have to be in Cahoots with
someone.
I’ve also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you
there.
I have, however, been in Sane.
They don’t have an airport; you
have to be driven there. I have
made several trips there, thanks
to my friends, family and work.
I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and
I’m not too much on physical activity anymore.
I have also been in Doubt. That
is a sad place to go, and I try not
to visit there too often.
I’ve been in Flexible, but only
when it was very important to
stand firm.
Sometimes I’m in Capable,

and I go there more often as I’m
getting older. One of my favorite
places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing
and pumps up the old heart! At
my age I need all the stimuli I can
get!
I may have been in Continent,
and I don’t remember what country I was in. It’s an age thing.

Saw you in the Ojo 17

CHILD

of the month

By Rich Petersen
Mario de Jesús Móntez
Oliveros

O

ur child this month is Mario
de Jesús Móntez Oliveros,
now 5 years old and sitting
in his new wheelchair. On his right is
his mother Carmen and his new little sister, Sinaí. Mario lives in Chapala with his
mom, sister and stepfather.
The others in the photo are Linda
Henley and Elaine Cooper, both of whom
work with “Pasos Milagrosos,” a group that
helps many children in the area through
equine therapy. We are giving a special
“shout-out” to “Pasos Milagrosos” this
month because Mario, among several
other of Niños Incapacitados’ children, are
being or have been helped greatly by being able to ride on a horse each weekend.
Linda is Mario’s “back rider,” i.e. she sits
behind Mario in the saddle and helps to
keep him upright and balanced.
We brought you Mario’s story about
four years ago and decided to have him
return to our monthly meeting in February so our members and volunteers could
see the improvement he has made. It is
beyond fortunate and bordering on the
miraculous that Mario has survived to this
point and we can bring you his story. A
little history ----Little Mario was born at 25 weeks
gestation (5-1/2 months) and weighed
less than one kilo at birth. In addition to
such a premature entrance to the world
and the problems accompanying it, Mario was born with hydrocephaly (sometimes referred to as ‘water on the brain’),
retinopathy (a potentially blinding eye
disorder that primarily affects premature
infants weighing two pounds or less), pulmonary distress, and as if these weren’t
enough, his right leg was malformed and
the doctors thought they might have to
amputate the limb.
For the hydrocephaly, Mario underwent surgery to place a drainage valve
in his head, a common procedure that
fortunately was successful in this case. He
spent over three months in the Hospital
Civil in Guadalajara recovering from this
surgery and allowing his immature lungs
to develop so he could come off a respirator. He was at home for a month and
then had to undergo two surgeries on his
right eye to repair the damage to his retina caused by the retinopathy. Fortunately
the malformed leg healed and amputa-

18

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

tion was not necessary.
When his mother first brought Mario to a Niños Incapacitados intake session, he could not hold his head up, was
very pale and listless, and did not seem
to react to his surroundings. He had also
developed an allergy to regular milk and
was not eating well or gaining weight.
With excellent care by his doctors, as well
as his mother’s love and attention, Mario
began to improve. He still has the drainage valve (which has had to be replaced
once). He did react to voices and movement, however, and now with constant (3
times a week) therapy at Teletón (Mexico’s
very competent therapy clinic), he is making good progress physically. For about a
year Mario had to wear eyeglasses to assist his vision, but fortunately his vision
has improved and the glasses are no longer necessary.
A big turning point in Mario’s development was his entrance into the “Pasos
Milagrosos” program. He is more confident in his surroundings and seems to
enjoy being around other children. His
mother—and the volunteers at Pasos-noticed almost immediate changes in
his motor and mental skills and ability. He
loves attention and hugs and kisses, to
which he responds with a big smile. He is
now even able to say a few words.
We are Niños Incapacitados have been
very gratified to see the progress made by
this little guy. If you would like to learn
more about what we do and meet one of
“our” children in person, please attend our
regular monthly meetings at 10:00 on the
second Thursday of each month in one of
the meeting rooms at the Hotel Real de
Chapala. And for more information about
Niños Incapacitados, see our website:
www.programaninos.org.

Saw you in the Ojo 19

Letter to the Editor

D

ear Sir:
I do not often comment on Paul Jackson’s
columns, but I must respond to the
letter by Carol Bowman and Ernie
Sowers. I must agree with Carol Bowman and Ernie Sowers about Paul
Jackson. I also argue for his right to
voice his opinions. I have even found
myself in agreement with a few of his
opinions.
However, he does not have the
right to state his opinions as facts,
which he does in virtually every column. Of the hundreds of examples, I
select the column in the Ojo del Lago
of January 2012, page 66, where he
states that in 1812, “President James
Madison decided to attack Canada”
and that “Canadians burned down
the White House.”
The facts are these: some Canadian historians maintain that Americans had wanted to seize parts of
Canada, (a view that many Canadians still share), while other Canadian
historians argue that the threat was
a tactic against Britain which had
blocked American trade with France
and had impressed U. S. seamen into
the Royal Navy. (See the ChesapeakeLeopard affair, after which many
Americans called for war with Great
Britain. Jefferson used this anger to
threaten the British government to
settle differences diplomatically.)
Which brings me to the second
fact: In 1812 there were no Canadians; there were only British colonial
subjects. Canada did not officially
become The Dominion of Canada
until July 1, 1867. In fact, Canada did
not officially become a country until
1982.
So I say keep writing, Mr. Jackson.
But please refrain from confusing
your opinions with facts.
Mel Goldberg
Mister Jackson replies:
I have rarely seen such goggledygook, gibbberish and jiggerypokery
as Mel Goldberg’s comments about
Canada and our federal government’s plans to commemorate and
celebrate our success in fighting off
the invasion in the War of 1812 in
which President James Madison had
his troops invade our country and
try to annex it into the USA. Goldberg makes the fatuous claim that
Canada did not “officially become a
country until 1982.” How come then
I have held Canadian citizenship

20

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

since 1964? Goldberg displays his
ignorance of what occurred in 1982
and this is it: In that period the Liberal government of Prime Minister
Pierre Elliott Trudeau decided to
‘patriate’ Canada’s Constitution from
Westminster (London) and add to it a
new Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
a codified constitution which has
made a lot of money for a lot of lawyers, but been a pain in the rear-end
for the rest of us.
I covered the ‘patriation’ constitutional talks for my newspaper chain
in Canada so am extremely familiar
with the situation. Goldberg undermines his own argument on this
score about Canada not “officially
becoming a country until 1982”
when he refers to the Dominion of
Canada being established in 1867
when Sir John A. Macdonald became
our first de facto prime minister.
Unlike the 1982 scenario, I can’t
say I covered the Charlottetown and
Quebec conferences in the 1860s
leading up to that event, but have
been told there was a doddering
old fellow at those meetings by the
Fathers of Canadian Confederation
who looked suspiciously like Mel.
One can see how age addles us all
eventually, and this may explain
poor Mel’s confusion and misreading
of events.
But perhaps he is also one of
those Americans who can’t accept
that a smallish but canny group of
Canadians, true, with some help from
the British, fought off a land grab by
a vastly larger nation of 7.5 million.
As an aside, one of the great victories in the Second World War was the
storming of the German-held Vimy
Ridge by Canadian troops. No military expert will deny this was not an
historic event, and one of the turning
points of that war.
Mel, please don’t try and tell any
Canadian living at Lakeside (which
I do not) that our heroic troops at
Vimy Ridge were not “officially” Canadian - unless, of course, you want a
well-aimed punch in the nose.
Cordially, as William F. Buckley
would say.
Paul Jackson

Saw you in the Ojo 21

Anyone
A
nyone C
Can
an Train
Train Their Dog
By Art Hess
artthedogguy@yahoo.com

B

ASIC VOCABULARY
We hear wonderful stories about dogs that know
250 words and the following week
there will be a report of a dog that has
mastered 500 words only to be upstaged by an African Gray parrot who
knows and speaks this many and a
bunch more.
I’m not here to suggest you and
Buddy need to learn quite that many
but you need to have about twenty
words. Some are a combination of
several words but for the most part
it’s easier for the dog if we keep things
short and easy to understand. Remember when we run off at the mouth, it’s
more difficult for him to know for sure
just what we want. The following list
starts out in order of importance and
then adds some that are used regularly
but they all fall into an equally important sort (of ) list.
NAME—if properly taught, the
name eliminates the need for those
extra words like, attention, look at me,
etc.
NO comes in a variety of flavors
from “Psst, hey don’t do that,” to something louder and more forceful, depending on the severity of the infraction.
SIT—is everyone’s favorite and introduced very early in the learning
process. Sit is forever useful because a
dog with his bum on the ground can’t
jump up, lunge, sniff inappropriate
places etc.

22

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

COME—is the next of the “no compromise” commands. If you’re only going to teach a few words, these first
four are must do words.
This next group is pretty standard
in most dog’s repertoire but not quite
as important as the first four.
DOWN is obvious and is a great position to have the dog assume when
you want him to relax or cool out and
let the air out of tires.
STAY is self explanatory and I also
teach WAIT at the same time. Their uses
are somewhat different and I prefer
WAIT if we want to literally wait briefly
before resuming an activity whereas
STAY to me is used to indicate a longer
duration.
Go to your BED or some other place
is extremely valuable in teaching the
dog to relocate and sit down on his
bed as opposed to continuing to perform some undesirable activity. Such
as barking or begging.
HEEL or the less formal LET’S GO
mean let’s go for a walk and the dog is
to be beside the handler in the correct
heeling position.
Coupled near the Heel category I
have to include LEAVE IT and DROP IT.
These are two more of the “no compromise “ commands.
These last few are useful but not up
near the top of my list.
OFF. Most people put this one up
near the top but I personally believe in
teaching my dogs that jumping up is
never an option so I almost never use
the word off.
STAND is useful particularly for your
groomer and sometimes at the vet.
JUMP or HUP are handy when loading the dog into the van.
BACK UP or GET BACK are pretty
useful when working with big dogs
even if it’s just to get them back from
a door.
Some people teach SPEAK. I don’t,
but I do teach QUIET.
The last two apply to starting and
ending schooling sessions. I start with
an enthusiastic, “ARE YOU READY?” and
I use a release to tell the dog that we’re
done. I use whatever is natural as long
as I am consistent. I find myself usually
using, “THAT’S IT. WE ARE DONE.”

HEARTS AT WORK - FEBRUARY 2012
rebecca
Mr Tipton, I love you xxx
THE IMAGE OF MEXICO
Hennie
A very interesting article. I enjoyed
reading it. Very informative. Thanks
Herbert.
VILLAGE VIGNETTES/MAGICAL MOMENTS
Jaime
Charming article!
VILLAGE VIGNETTES/MAGICAL MOMENTS
Lorraine

Very romantic
Micki. Just in time
for Valentines Day.
THE IMAGE OF MEXICO
John E
Well written. I grew up in Central
California and saw the icon presented
seemingly everywhere, but never fully
understood the significance. Thank
you.
EDITOR’S PAGE - FEBRUARY 2012
julian Dunlop
Conan Doyle was a Scot, born in
Edinburgh and educated in Scotland,
not Irish.

AN
A
N AMERICAN
AMERIC
CAN MIGRANT
MIG
GRANT IN
IN MEXICO
MEXIC
CO
By William Haydon

I

once described San Blas, my
seaside home for more than
two years now, as a mosaic of
broken tiles, and I considered myself to be the most broken tile of
them all. It must be regarded, then,
as a great measure of this town’s ability to nurture and to heal and promote
growth that this self-described broken
tile now feels bold enough to step out
of the niche which has housed me so
unconditionally for so long, and to
move onward in my journey to discover Mexico.
My love for San Blas remains fully
intact, but I find that I have fallen into
a fairly predictable routine here which
involves regularly drinking too much,
which doesn’t particularly bother
me, but I also find that I am enjoying
it less and that scares the hell outta
me. I have to admit that I am growing
bored. I arrived in this village back in
November of 2009 with no friends,
no language skills, and an off-putting
sense of humor that alienates far more
friends than it ever wins over, and in
spite of all that, I now find myself with
a profusion of friends, an ability to converse and even make bad jokes in an
effective if crude version of Spanish,
and also with a sense of having graduated to the status of Mexican citizen, in
spirit at least, if not in any binding legal
sense. I feel comfortable here. This life
feels familiar. I find myself with a desire

William Haydon
to move on to the next step.
For me, the next step is Compostela. I have decided to exchange my
easy beach access for mountain views
and cooler temperatures. Did a $4,000
peso CFE bill caused by excessive air
conditioner usage during San Blas’
last, blistering summer heat wave have
something to do with this decision?
Perhaps. Was I influenced by Compostela’s abundant charm—the duck-filled
lake, the pristine plaza, the bucolic surrounding countryside? Absolutely. Am
I enticed by the challenge of living in a
town where I will be one of only a small
handful of gringos? Very much so.
In fact, I am reminded of when I was
a child getting ready to ride my bike
without training wheels for the first
time, because the absence of a gringo
support network is actually why this
move to Compostela feels like the perfect next step for me: it feels like Mexico without training wheels. Exhilarating. Scary. Perfect.

Saw you in the Ojo 23

LLETTERS
ETTERS FROM
FROM FAMOUS
FAMOUS PEOPLE
PEOPLE

I

n 1951, E. B. White—the novelist responsible for, most notably, Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little—was accused by the ASPCA
of not paying his dog tax and, as a
result, “harboring” an unlicensed dog.
He responded by way of the following
delightful letter.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals York Avenue and East 92nd Street New York,
28, NY
Dear Sirs:
I have your letter, undated, saying
that I am harboring an unlicensed dog
in violation of the law. If by “harboring” you mean getting up two or three
times every night to pull Minnie’s blanket up over her, I am harboring a dog
all right. The blanket keeps slipping off.
I suppose you are wondering by now
why I don’t get her a sweater instead.
That’s a joke on you. She has a knitted
sweater, but she doesn’t like to wear it
for sleeping; her legs are so short they
work out of a sweater and her toenails
get caught in the mesh, and this disturbs her rest. If Minnie doesn’t get her
rest, she feels it right away. I do myself,
and of course with this night duty of
mine, the way the blanket slips and all,
I haven’t had any real rest in years. Minnie is twelve.
In spite of what your inspector
reported, she has a license. She is licensed in the State of Maine as an
unspayed bitch, or what is more commonly called an “unspaded” bitch. She
wears her metal license tag but I must
say I don’t particularly care for it, as
it is in the shape of a hydrant, which
seems to me a feeble gag, besides being pointless in the case of a female. It
is hard to believe that any state in the
Union would circulate a gag like that
and make people pay money for it, but
Maine is always thinking of something.

24

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Maine
M
i
puts up roadside
d id crosses
along the highways to mark the spots
where people have lost their lives in
motor accidents, so the highways are
beginning to take on the appearance
of a cemetery, and motoring in Maine
has become a solemn experience,
when one thinks mostly about death.
I was driving along a road near Kittery
the other day thinking about death
and all of a sudden I heard the spring
peepers. That changed me right away
and I suddenly thought about life. It
was the nicest feeling.
You asked about Minnie’s name,
sex, breed, and phone number. She
doesn’t answer the phone. She is a
dachshund and can’t reach it, but she
wouldn’t answer it even if she could, as
she has no interest in outside calls. I did
have a dachshund once, a male, who
was interested in the telephone, and
who got a great many calls, but Fred
was an exceptional dog (his name was
Fred) and I can’t think of anything offhand that he wasn’t interested in. The
telephone was only one of a thousand
things. He loved life — that is, he loved
life if by “life” you mean “trouble,” and
of course the phone is almost synonymous with trouble.
Minnie loves life, too, but her idea
of life is a warm bed, preferably with an
electric pad, and a friend in bed with
her, and plenty of shut-eye, night and
days. She’s almost twelve. I guess I’ve
already mentioned that. I got her from
Dr. Clarence Little in 1939. He was using dachshunds in his cancer-research
experiments (that was before Winchell
was running the thing) and he had a
couple of extra puppies, so I wheedled
Minnie out of him. She later had puppies by her own father, at Dr. Little’s
request. What do you think about
that for a scandal? I know what Fred
thought about it. He was some put out.
Sincerely yours,
E. B. White

Saw you in the Ojo 25

Hearts at Work
A Column by James Tipton
“Complete in Itself”

I

like public transportation. I
would like to gather together in
one large room all of the people
I have met, particularly on buses, with
whom I have enjoyed, sometimes for
several hours, a relationship that was
pleasurable, that held without doubt
a kind of meaning, that was complete
in itself .
Some years ago in Denver, I was
waiting at a bus stop on Colorado Boulevard, headed toward a lunch promise
in Cherry Creek, when a young woman, attractive in her own way (which
is always the best way), sat down on
the iron seat beside me. She had silver hoops on her ears, and a modest
silver necklace arranged itself against
her breasts, which themselves were
pleasantly imaginable beneath a blue
denim shirt embroidered with flowers.
Wow, I thought. I also still remember

26

the almost iridescent Blue Morpho
butterfly tattooed on the outside of
her charming left ankle.
As it turned out she was headed
south to her home. Although maybe
thirty years old, she still lived with her
father and mother in Gallup, New Mexico. We were not even waiting for the
same bus. But as I quickly discovered
(because she saw the book of Chinese
love poems in my hand), she, like myself, loved and wrote (and even had a
few published) poems. And so for ten
minutes we swapped our short poems
with each other. When her bus arrived
I was almost ready to follow her onto

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

it, thinking to hell with that lunch date
in Cherry Creek, and to hell with everything else about my life.
That night, still thinking about her, I
wrote something like this:
Ten minutes at a Bus Stop on Colorado Boulevard
A giant piece of butterfly had broken
off inside her and I liked her for that. I
was tired of living in the city. And I was
generally tired of the angels of the New
Age and their neurotic wings flapping to
the point of almost being visible. And I
was tired of the dissipation I was feeling,
the dissipation I feel when I do what I do
not want to be doing or say what I do not
want to be saying…when I sort of feed
Me too long to hungry people.
Around her the air felt suddenly fresh,
and I breathed it deeply into me—like
those breaths we sometimes discover
that move us toward re-connection, toward being more intensely alive. And between the words she spoke was the same
no-sound I hear when hiking at high altitudes, the same no-sound rocks make
when I feel faint, the same no-sound
sweat makes as it muses out of the pores,
the same sweet no-sound I hear when
others think I have lost attention, when
others think I suffer a shortage of acceptable concentration in this concatenation
of nerves that in another might have developed into a tentacled and somewhat

respected reason, a state of mind, one
might say, that at least bordered on being admitted to the union.
But here was union. Was it any wonder that I fell in love? And even though
in letting her go I let her go for good,
and even though the illimitable desire
for connection rose up in me, there was
union in that short space of which all our
wisdom and our history has no knowledge.
The more I thought about that
woman headed to Gallup, whom I realized later was probably at least part
Navajo, or Zuni, the more I realized that
I could, when I become very still and
very open, fall in love with almost everyone, that I could be led by instinct
to establish some immediate connection, to visit some common invisible
garden in which we could share, if only
for a few minutes, the most important
aspects of our lives.
It took me months to come to that
conclusion. But before that conclusion what actually happened was this.
I was distracted all through that lunch
in Cherry Creek, which was with a respectable young woman, whom I had
met in The Tattered Cover Bookstore,
who loved her weekend hikes with me
in the mountains immediately west of
Denver. That following Friday, I cancelled our climb of Mount Bierstadt. Instead, I followed a ridiculous romantic
whim (something I remained capable
of until only a few days ago), and I
drove to Gallup.
There I spent two days riding city
buses, seeing Indians everywhere I
looked, but all I found was a woman
working at Burger King whose face
suggested she might have been a reasonably close relative. I leaned over
the counter to study
her ankles. Nothing.
I asked her whether
she wrote poetry. Irritated, she looked up
from the cash register
and demanded, “Is
that for here or to go?”
Jim Tipton

o for years I knew I ha
had
ad
ad
d fdif
various sensitivities to difcourse
se
ferent foods. Of course
uld
ld
d
standard medical tests could
he
never definitively prove that the
ess
causes of my many health issues
giveen
n
were food based. I would be given
ppeeasse
medications to temporarily appease
he roo
rroot
ot
symptoms, never getting at the
nd-aaid
d
cause of the problems—all band-aid
rst dur
rin
ing
ng
therapy. I recall feeling the worst
during
the two years I chose to become vegetarian, at which time many of my symptoms were exacerbated - and my weight
soared, not to mention increased feelings
of paranoia, anxiety and depression - for
no apparent reason. The question always
lurked in my mind, “Do I have a sensitivity
to gluten”? But because there is no accurate testing for this and because I, being
a true Hungarian, loved my bread, pasta
and other baked goods, I kept myself in
denial.
It is estimated that up to 40% of the
population is gluten sensitive. Unfortunately many people are unaware that the
symptoms they are experiencing could
be a reaction to the gluten contained in
the products they consume on a daily basis - including mental symptoms such as
depression, anger, irritability, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, etc.
What is gluten?
Gluten is a protein which is commonly
found in grains such as wheat, smelt, rye,
barley and oats. To many people this protein acts as a toxin, slowly eroding the
small intestine which helps food convert
into fuel. As a result, the body develops
serious deficiencies, mainly to iron, zinc,
tryptophan and B12. Iron and B12 deficiency causes anemia which in turn can
result in fatigue, brain fog, neuropathy,
memory problems, depression, and other
mental symptoms. Zinc deficiency has
been linked to depression, a suppressed
immune system and a dulled memory,
playing “an important role in the production and use of neurotransmitters-brain
chemicals that help modulate mood”
(The Breakthrough Depression Solution by
James Greenblatt, M.D.)
A 1998 study showed that about 1/3
of those who had celiac disease, a form
of gluten intolerance that is testable, suffered from depression and that adolescents with celiac disease or gluten intolerance have a 30% risk of depression while
only 7% of healthy adolescents face this
risk.

30

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Symp
Symptoms
mp
pto
toms
tom
Different bodies react differently
to gluten and there are over one hundred symptoms associated with gluten
intolerance. Among them are eczema,
headaches, ADHD, thyroid problems, osteoporosis, epilepsy, arthritis, intestinal
bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, depression, anxiety,
weight gain or loss, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune diseases, cramps,
tingling and numbness, irritability and
other behavior changes. Even lymphoma
and colon cancer has been linked to this
sensitivity.
Much of the literature about gluten
intolerance states that it could take more
than thirty years to be diagnosed with
this problem. Even worse, symptoms can
change over the years, masking itself like
a chameleon. For instance chronic ear infections can change to asthma and later
can become irritable bowel syndrome or
arthritis—different symptoms but same
cause.
Diagnosis
The only way to really know if you are
gluten intolerant is to adopt a gluten-free
diet for at least two weeks but a month
or two is ideal. For over thirty years I had
been muscle-testing people for food sensitivities, including gluten, directing them
to change their diets only to see them recovering from many chronic illnesses.
Many people who are sensitive to gluten are also sensitive to dairy products
and must eliminate both from their diets. In most cases, this elimination brings
about huge changes for the better in their
overall health - elimination of many ailments and increased energy - an overall
better quality of life.
(Judit Rajhathy is
the author of the Canadian best-selling
book, Free to Fly: a
journey toward wellness. Contact her at
765-4551 or www.juditrajhathy.com.)
Judit Rajhathy

Saw you in the Ojo 31

Mañanitas
By Gloria Marthai

T

he tip of the cigarette
glows brighter in the darkness as the man draws on
it and then touches it to the black
powder propellant. The cohete
-rocket- swishes high into the air
where it explodes in a burst of light,
assaulting the early morning stillness. Time and time again the man
and his older companion, missing
two fingers of his right hand, send
rockets thundering on their mission
to awaken the village. Indeed, the intrusion is so abrupt, it is impossible to
ignore. It is a message to one and all
to come to Mañanitas, a dawn homage to the Virgin of the Assumption.
Soon, women with their rebozos
wrapped tightly about them against
the chilly morning air and men wearing sarapes make their way down
the dark cobbled streets to the little
stucco church. Overhead, paper decorations, compostura, whisper in the
light breeze.
Tinny tones of tambourine tapping and guitar plucking and strumming greet them pleasantly as the
estudiantina, a group of young musicians, tune their instruments under
the arches in the church courtyard.
Presently the sacristan, dressed
in jeans and sweatshirt, unlocks
and struggles to open the massive
church doors from inside. They gratingly groan and scrape the tile floor

32

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

until finally resistance gives way and
he leans casually against old forged
hinges gazing out at the group gathered there. Behind him the festooned
interior releases flowery fragrance.
The estudiantina begins to play
and well practiced voices rise in the
traditional dawn serenade, Las Mañanitas del Rey David. There is informality in dress and manner as people
move down the aisle and enter pews.
The church is an extended home to
the villagers. They were carried as babies to mass and played in the aisles
as tots where scolding from the pulpit
still is not unusual. For many, it is here
that the complete life cycle is played
out, literally cradle to grave, with
a myriad of meaningful occasions
such as this homage to the Virgin,
repeated each morning of the nineday fiesta. The expense and work is
distributed and shared among those
who are able but participation and
pleasure is enjoyed by all.
In the church, tied-back blue
draperies alternate with white ones
every four pews along the walls and
join high in the middle at the chandeliers. Swallows swoop and dart about
on the high ledges from open windows of the church competing for attention as the people sing and pray.
In this small village where few
girls have ever owned a doll, the 16”
figure of the Virgin is idolized. Fair
skinned, she has a young-girl face;
her hip length real hair is spread out
fan-like down her back and sides.
Her arms are extended invitingly.
Dangling gold earrings glitter in the
candlelight about her and her ornate,
handmade gown is only one of several changes that she has.
Fingers stroke her, she is spoken
to, problems pour out, and Her intercession is solicited. One man wanting to share his nearly empty bottle
of tequila with her, is kindly led away.
Complete with shiny crown and
heavenly halo, the little Virgin reins
on her pedestal to the left of the altar, banked with flowers and candies.
On the ninth day she will be carried

through the decorated streets in procession with band playing and Indian dancers waving standards and
stamping their clogs to drum rhythm.
The maĂąanitas homage is a time
for music, song and prayer. Meanwhile, outside it sounds as though
pandemonium has broken loose as
deafening rapid fire salvos of fireworks are set off on the plaza. More
cohetes race each other into the sky.
Church bells clang. Distant thunder
competes in this land of fantastic
contrast. Then all is still, save for the
uninterrupted chanting of the rosary.
Outside in the courtyard, tĂŠ de

canela, hot cinnamon tea, with or
without alcohol, is served. The meditative, mellow mood deepens and
the warmth feels good in the freshness of the splendid dawn, dazzling
in all its forms and colors reflected on
the rippled lake, the sun still well below the Easter horizon.
Blue and white compostura, intricate, delicate rectangles of cutout tissue paper in the Virginâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colors, hanging from roof tops on strings strung
across the streets, flutter and flap in
the air as the villagers make their way
back to their homes.

d. Note: Shelley will soon
be leaving the Ojo, but
we thought that by publishing this information, it might
greatly help our readers, as well as
Tod Jonson and Barbara Clippinger,
who will be taking over the column
in April.)
What is the deadline for sending you material?
Deadline is 6 pm on the 15th for
publication on the 5th of the following month.
What information should I include?
Events need a brief description –
what is happening, the time, and lo-

34

cation.
Cost of the event – free or donation or purchase tickets. If tickets are
needed, where and when can they be
purchased?
If reservations are required, who
do they contact – and if applicable,
last day they can make reservations.
Please try to make the event
sound interesting to Lakesiders –
that is, why should they attend.
It is okay to refer readers to a
website for more information if your
event/activity needs more space.
Please send us original material. The column should not look like
an outdated copy of the Guadalajara
Reporter. So please – send us some-

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

thing slightly different – to include
pictures different from what was or
will be published in the Guadalajara
Reporter.
Information for past events
should be fairly current.
If your event is going to be included in the El Ojo LCS section, we do
not want to duplicate it in the Lakeside Living Column.
How long is too long?
Please limit an event/activity description to 50 – to 100 words or less
as I have limitations on how many
words that can be included in the column. Multiple events would be limited to 50 words each or less. Lengthy
articles will be pared down – best
if you do this instead of me. If you
don’t have software that automatically does a word count like Word
2007 - just google “word count” - lots
of programs out there where you just
do a copy and paste to determine the
number of words.
And please, send me one submission for the next month’s column.
What is the policy for pictures?
One picture is encouraged and
must be high resolution – see below for more information. Image size
should be at least 3” x 5” – can be longer on each side, but a minimum of 3”
or 4” on the shortest side. Please do
not send us the same pictures that
were or will be in the Guadalajara Reporter.
For the subject, just remember
that the picture will be small – perhaps 3” x 2” - in the El Ojo – so focusing on something that will show up
well in a small picture works much
better than a long line of people. And
every picture should tell a story!
Image resolution describes the
quality of an image when printed
– and to oversimplify, just think of a
pixel as a very very tiny drop of color
– and the number of pixels in each
inch of a picture determines the
quality (resolution) of a picture.
For pictures on the internet, images are usually 72 pixels per inch.

When you see them on your computer monitor or other display device, they look fine. But there are not
enough pixels in most internet images to allow them to print at high
quality, at least not without printing the picture very like the size of a
postage stamp. An example is – a low
resolution picture would need to be
25 inches by 25 inches in order to be
downsized to a small resolution image suitable for printing.
For pictures that are printed (instead of viewed on your computer
monitor), more pixels per inch are
needed – how many is going to depend on the quality you need. For
Lakeside Living and El Ojo, the minimum is 200 pixels per inch.
So what does that mean for your
camera? Cameras will have different settings for resolution. Mine has
large picture, medium or small. If I
select large picture, my camera will
now take pictures at 200 pixels per
inch. If I select small, it will take pictures at 72 pixels per inch. Other
cameras may have settings for high,
low or medium resolution – check
your camera instruction.
If you can’t find the setting, try
searching on google - - use the camera name + model number + high
resolution example: “sony E52-C high
resolution.”
Tip – Also look for pictures that are
large files – more than 300K – if smaller
than that, it is probably low resolution.
You can check file size when you attach
the picture.
If you use your camera software
or programs like Picasa to download
pictures from your camera, they, too,
should have options for resolution.
For more information, check the appropriate help files that come with
your camera software or that are
available with programs such as Picasa.
And any questions, please feel
free to email me: Shelley.el.ojo@
gmail.com

Saw you in the Ojo 35

A FOND FAREWELL AND A WARM WELCOME

I

t is with deep regret that
we announce that Shelley
Edson’s Lakeside Living
column will be her last one. Shelley has written the column for some
six months and as we never tired of
telling her, she hit the ground running
and got even faster with each succeeding month. In that time, she made many
friends and gained the admiration of
much of our readership. We wish Shelley
the best of luck and by way of expressing
our thanks, we will always welcome her
at our yearly awards luncheon.
Luckily, standing in the wings are
two of Lakeside’s most popular people,
Tod Jonson and Barbara Clippinger. Tod
and his partner, the late Ektor Carranza,
handled the column about three years
ago. Tod first came to our beloved little
corner of Mexico some 25 years ago and
quickly became a super-achiever here,
as he had been for many years in the
American motion picture industry. (For
much more information, check out Paul
Jackson’s recent Ojo profile on Tod.) Tod’s
e-mail is todoflcs@yahoo.com.

Barbara is new to the Ojo Family, but
certainly not to Lakesiders.
She has been the President of LLT,
and has directed or choreographed 17
LLT shows. Barbara has been President of
CASA, Co-chair for several Fun-raisers for
Ninos Incapcitados, and Fashion show
narrator for The Red Cross. Her first career was as a professional dancer and
choreographer, with credits that include
“Golden Boy” on Broadway with Sammy
Davis Jr., and with The June Taylor dancers on “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Further, after earning a Master’s Degree in
Psychology, she developed and directed
programs for battered women, runaway
kids, and homeless men and women.
Barbara’s e-mail is clippy1020@gmail.
com
Adios, Shelley and welcome Tod and
Barbara!
Ag

NIFTY ONE-LINERS

•

•
•

•

•

•
•
•
•

•

36

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

N

ostalgia is a device that
removes the ruts and the
potholes from Memory

Lane.
I just got back from a pleasure trip. I
drove my wife to the airport.
I always wanted to be somebody,
but I should have been more specific.
Last night our high school band
played Beethoven. Beethoven lost,
12 to 7.
A married man should forget his
mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.
I used to have a handle on life, but
it broke.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years... then we met.
George Washington’s brother was
the uncle of our country.
I have enough money to last me
the rest of my life... unless I buy
something.
Did you hear about the two blond
thieves that stole a calendar? They

•
•

•

•

•
•
•

•

each got six months.
I don’t mind the rat race, but I could
do with a little more cheese.
Love is like a roller coaster: when
it’s good you don’t want to get off,
and when it isn’t, you can’t wait to
throw up.
What is the difference between
men and pigs? Pigs don’t turn into
men when they drink.
A chicken coop always has two
doors. If it had four, it would be a
chicken sedan.
I don’t eat snails... I prefer fast food!
Filthy stinking rich... Well, two out
of three ain’t bad.
You know you’re in a small town
when everyone knows whose credit is good and whose wife isn’t.
Marriage is like a violin; after the
sweet music is over, there are still
strings attached.

Saw you in the Ojo 37

From The Grapevine
By Robert Kleffel and Noemí Paz

Lakeside’s Most Popular Wines
(Ed. Note: This marks the debut of this column in the Ojo. Welcome, Robert
and Noemi!)

W

e did some statistical
research to determine
the best-selling wines
at Lakeside during the last year. As
might be expected, the best-selling
wines were not the most expensive nor
were they the least expensive. It is our
conclusion that these wines represent
good value. They are good table wines
that can be enjoyed every day and not
break your bank. Note: “jug” wines and
“boxed” wines were not included in the
survey.
There were some surprises, for example, 65% of the wines sold were
white wines and 35% red wines. The
most popular white wine is the Sauvignon Blanc sometimes called Fume
Blanc in California. Wine experts have
used the phrase “crisp, elegant, and
fresh” as a favorable description of
Sauvignon Blanc. It is probably the
most versatile wine to pair with food
appropriate for white wine. The most
popular red wine is the Cabernet Sauvignon. It has been planted in every
country that produces wine.
Worldwide, however, Merlot may
be the largest selling red wine.
The country which sells the most
wine at Lakeside is Chile. This is not
surprising because Chile has great
wine growing land and climate, sophisticated wine producers and the
government supports the export of
Chilean wine.
Most Popular Wines by Country
Mexico
Red: LA Cetto – Cabernet Sauvignon - About $7.15 USD
White: LA Cetto – Fume Blanc
- About $7.15 USD
United States
Red: Barefoot - Cabernet Sauvignon - About $8.00 USD
White: Barefoot – Pinot Grigio
- About $8.00 USD
Australia
Red: Yellowtail – Shiraz –
About $12.40 USD
White: Black Swan – Chardonnay – About $10.80 USD
Italy
Red: Chianti Ruffino – Chianti

38

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Robert and Noemi
- About $12.50 USD
White: Vivolo – Pinot Grigio –
About $8.10 USD
France
Red: Chamarre – Pinot Noir –
About $15.00 USD
White: Chamarre – Cabernet/
Grenache – About $11.50 USD
Spain
Red: Torres - Gran Sangre Toro
– About $16.25 USD
White: Marques de Riscal Blanco – About $13.45 USD
Chile
Red: Viña Maipo – Cabernet
Sauvignon – About $5.85 USD
White: Viña Maipo - Sauvignon Blanc - About $5.85 USD
And the Winner is Viña Maipo
The most popular wines at Lakesides, as measured by sales volume, are
the wines that come from Chile’s Viña
Maipo Vineyards. Viña Maipo is a part
of the Concha y Toro group which has
many wineries including Fetzer wineries in California. Viña Maipo winery
sells wine to over 45 countries by selling great table wines at a very affordable price.
We recommend that you try wines
from the above list of popular wines to
broaden your selection of table wines.
Noemí Paz licorespaz@hotmail.com
Robert Kleffel bkleffel@hotmail.com

Saw you in the Ojo 39

By Paul Jackson
paulconradjackson@gmail.com

Paul Jackson

T

he Liberal-Left in Canada is in an uproar over
the federal Conservative
government’s suggestions it may
raise eligibility for one plank of
the nation`s social security system from the retirement age of
65 to that of 67 some 10 years
from now and even then phased
in over four years.
Hardly a draconian move.
Canada`s social security system
is far different than that of the USA
- basically an alphabet soup mix but simply put this is it:
Everyone who hits 65 automatically gets about $550 a month in
Old Age Security (OAS) payouts.
Next, comes the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), that is somewhat
like social security in the USA,
which you pay into on a progressive basis depending on how much

40

you make and how long you work.
Generally, the average payout a
month is about $850.
Add to these payouts, if you
have no other income you can
apply for the Guaranteed Income
Supplement (GIS) that pays out
about an additional $800 a month.
Coincidentally, Conservative Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, who
started the uproar from the Liberal-Left that the official retirement
age of 65 will have to be moved up
to 67, recently boosted by $800 a
year GIC payouts for the really low
income Canadian - that`s about an
extra one month`s rent.
So, generally speaking, the lowest income Canadians can count
on about $24,000 to $25,000 a year
from the federal government. Plus,

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

universal ‘free’ health care and various subsidized housing programs.
No wonder the Organization
for Econonomic Development and
Co-operation (OEDC) has assessed
that after the Netherlands, Canada
has the best programs for senior
citizens on the planet.
But here`s the rub: Because
of an aging population of baby
boomers, and dramatically falling birthrate, which means fewer
and fewer workers paying into the
various funds, within the next five
years alone, the plans will cost a
whopping 32% more, and triple by
2030.
They will be un-sustainable.
So Harper`s Conservatives believe accessibility to the basic plan
- the $550 a month OAS - should
be hiked from 65 years of age to
67 in 10 years time and phased
in over four years. The other programs would remain essentially
untouched.
Strangely, the Liberals who are
leading the charge against Harper’s modest plan, just a decade or
so ago, under Prime Minister Jean
Chretien and Finance Minister Paul
Martin overnight, and with no debate, hiked compulsory CPP premiums (again, akin to USA social

security) by 71% - the biggest tax
increase in Canadian history - and
then planned to make changes
to the two other plans, but they
backed off fearing a voter backlash,
leaving some other government to
face the wrath.
Now they are the ones frothing
at the mouth over what they know
has to be done - and should have
been done - when they were in
government.
Seems like hypocrisy to me.
How about you?

Saw you in the Ojo 41

Shelley Edson
Phone: 376 – 765 – 4049
Email: Shelley.el.ojo@gmail.com

Lake Chapala Farmers Market Founders

LCS Fiesta Latina

Past Events
The LCS Fiesta Latina was a smashing success, raising more than $100,000 pesos.
This money supplements the LCS Community Education Program which includes Children’s Art, the Wilkes Education Center, English as a Second Language classes, the Neill
James Biblioteca Publica of Ajijic, located inside the Wilkes Education Center, and the
more than 40 students in our student aid program.
Over a half dozen of the students that receive aid from LCS volunteered at the event:
preparing decorations, serving appetizers, and assisting with clean up. It allowed the students to meet and greet LCS members who support them. It truly was a wonderful day.
As things would have it, at 5:30 pm the skies decided to send down a quick shower that
sent almost everyone home, but the drawing for the 50-50 raffle still held an audience.
LCS thanks all of the participants, volunteers, staff, local artists, businesses including
Roberto’s restaurant, and students who helped make this event a success, especially the
LCS Fund Development Committee, chaired by Lois Cugini, whose year’s worth of work
culminated in a great success. Pictured is Fiesta Latina committee members Patricia
Duran, Lois Cugini and Mary Bruce.
Present Events
Through March 18, a major exhibit of 50 photographs of Photographer Terry
Pitzner is at Galeria Quattro. Terry spent 7 years in Afghanistan, as the head of the U.N.
office in Kabul for repatriation and providing durable solutions for refugees and Afghan
communities. His was an extraordinary experience and the public has a unique opportunity to see his photos from that time. Come and view his photos of the young people,
old people, the children and soldiers, the abandoned streets and crumbling buildings,
and the portraits of a people, full of hope and despair. They are stunning, and, at times,
emotionally wrenching. Galeria Quattro is located at Colon #9, one half block down from
the plaza in Ajijic.
The Tuesday Organic Market has changed their name to Lake Chapala Farmers
Market. Fifty-five vendors,
some from as far away as
La Primavera, sell their
local natural or organic
products each Tuesday
from 10 to 12:30 at the
Centro Laguna Plaza in
Ajijic drawing from 200 to
300 Lakeside customers
each week. Celebrating
their second anniversary
in March, the market has
grown from a small fledging endeavor to the place
to go to purchase healthy
organic and natural products at Lakeside. Vendors
Photo Exhibit at Galeria Quattro

42

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

offer a wide range of delicious food products; examples are farm fresh carrots, beets,
spinach, chard, mushrooms, 5 colors of tomatoes and choices of lettuces, organic eggs
and chicken, whole grain baked goods,
honey, teas, chocolate, artisan cheeses plus a variety of healthy prepared
foods.
Pictured are three of the Mexican
founders, Espiridon Eventes Anles
(better known as Paye), Rafael Hernandaz and Ezequiel Macios Ochaa. Ezequiel started the Eco Mercado in
Guadalajara in 1996. Paye teaches
organic farming at the RASA farm in
Ixtlahuacán. His next class is in April
and covers a multitude of topics from
using natural pesticides and fungicides
to foliar fertilizing. Classes are in Spanish. Find him at the market for more information. For more information about
RASA, go to their website: www.redrasa.wordpress.com.
Future Events
If you need to purchase tickets
Vendors at Lake Chapala Farmers
for an event from the LCS ticket booth,
Market
Diane Pearl, Charter Club, or the Auditorio de la Ribera, you can find the
hours that they are open under “Ticket Info,” at the end of this column.
Fridays in March, Lake Chapala Hospice presents a second series of thoughtprovoking documentaries! The remaining films in this series are Facing Death by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on March 9; Choosing to Die by Terry Pratchett on March 16, The Last
Days of extraordinary lives on March 23, and Gen Silent by Stu Maddux on March 30. The
documentaries will be shown at the LCS Sala at 2:30pm. Please reserve your seats by
sending a request to: admin@lakechapalahospice.com. For more information about the
documentaries, visit their website: www.lakechapalahospice.com/Documentaries.html.
Viva Musica has some wonderful offerings for Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra
performances in Guadalajara: March 2 - Friday Evening, March 11 - Sunday Matinee,
March 16 - Friday Evening, March 25 - Sunday Matinee, April 1- Sunday Matinee. For
complete program information, go to the Philharmonic website: www.ofj.com.mx.
The Friday concerts depart Ajijic at 4:30 pm and include a stop for dinner at a choice
of restaurants. The Sunday concerts depart Ajijic at 10:30 am with food options at the
theater. Prices are $250 pesos for Viva Members, and $350 pesos for non members. To
reserve , e-mail marshallallenkrantz@yahoo.com or call 766-2834.
March 8 at 6 pm, Latin Dance Show is at the Auditorio de la Ribera. Fernando
Serna and his Danza con Clase, 23 dancers from Centro Cultura Danza, con will perform an Anthology of Danzon in the first part of the program. This will be followed by
performances by 6 dancers from the Ballet Neo Clasico. The second half of the program
includes Latin dances such as salsa, cumbia, bachata, son, tango and west coast swing.
Fernando Serna was born in Guadalajara in 1970. He worked with the Ballet Folklorico for many years, before leaving to form his own academy and dance company in
2007. He has appeared with his dancers in numerous Danzon competitions in major
national Danzon congresses, most recently in 2011 at the Teatro Degollado with Arturo
Marquez, to great acclaim. Tickets are available at the LCS ticket booth, Charter Club
Tours, Diane Pearl and the Auditorio for $250 pesos for Viva members and $300 pesos

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El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

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El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

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El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Saw you in the Ojo 49

for non members.
March 15, 5:30 pm at the
Hotel Real de Chapala, come
and walk the red carpet with
Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, a.k.a. Rhett Butler hosted
by Niños Incapacitados del Lago.
You can even have your photo
taken with the stars! Come as a
Hollywood star, a director, a cinematographer or an extra, but
please come. The children in our
program need your help. We can
accept more kids if you’ll make up
a table, dress to the nines, bid for
the exciting items in our live and
Meet Rhett Butler March 15
silent auctions and much more.
There will be surprises, and we
guarantee a lively and entertaining evening with and beneath the stars. Tickets are $450
pesos each and are available at the LCS ticket booth. Each table seats 10 people. If you
want to come in a smaller group, we’ll be happy to seat you at an open table.
We’ll also be honoring some of Tinsel Town’s leading lights – The Rat Pack – by naming special tables after them. For $7,500 pesos for a table of 10 you can enjoy an array
of scrumptious extras such as a 750 ml bottle of Siete Leguas tequila, three bottles of
Reserva wine, your photograph taken with Marilyn and/or Rhett, chocolates, coffee and
liqueurs and other premium items. You get to choose the name of your table. Someone
is already bidding for Frank Sinatra so don’t delay! If Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.,
Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop are snapped up, we can name tables after the “Rat Pack
Mascots” who included Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson and Juliet
Prowse.
Rhett Butler may famously have said “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” but we
do and we know you do too because of your previous and much-appreciated support.
We sincerely hope you will join us for a star-studded evening at Hollywood on the Lake.
Please contact Kari Higgins at 766-3651 or e-mail karihiggins@laguna.com.mx for reservations.
Raffle for the Arts is being held by Los Cantantes del Lago to benefit the Pro
Auditorio fund. Over 30 prizes will be raffled off to include event tickets for LLT, My, My
How Nice! Productions, MAS, and certificates for Go Restaurant, Ajijic Tango, La Nueva
Posada and many more items listed on www.loscantantesdellago.com. Raffle tickets are
200 pesos and the drawing will be at the last Los Cantantes del Lago Spring Concert on
March 28th. One need not be present to win.
March 10, 4 pm My My How Nice Productions! presents Hebrew Melodies: A
Musical Journey Through the World performed by Budapest Native Madalina Nicolescu and Timothy G. Ruff Welch, pianist and Music Director of Los Cantantes del Lago
at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. Tickets are 200 pesos, available by emailing mymytickets@gmail.com or at Mia’s Boutique and
Diane Pearl Colecciones.
March 13, 7:30 pm - MAS Musica
proudly presents Viva Flamenco,
voted the Best Flamenco Company by
the National Association of Broadcasters of Mexico. Viva Flamenco arrives
from Mexico City to perform Pasiones
En Rojo at the Auditorio de la Ribera.
Under the direction of Leticia Cosio, this
sensational Flamenco Company, has
electrified audiences through the US,
Spain, and Latin America since 2003.
The 350 peso tickets can be purchased
at the LCS ticket booth, Charter Club
Tours, and at MAS’ new ticket venue on
the Guadalupe Victoria Walkway near
the Ajijic Plaza on Sundays, March 4
and 11 from 10 am to 2 pm. For more
information, contact Kathleen Phelps at
766-0010.
March 17, 5 to 7 pm, ASA’s Annual Judged Show and Reception will
be held at the Ajijic Cultural Center. Following the judging, works entered in
the show, to include jewelry, sculpture,
textiles, drawings, paintings and photographs, will be available for purchase.
The exhibit will be at the Cultural Center
Viva Flamenco

50

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

through the 29th.
March 20, 6 pm,
Jaltepec Centro Educativo invites you to
their last dinner of the
season. The event starts
with a No Host Bar and
delicious hors d’oeuvres
prepared by the students.
Enjoy a beautiful cocktail
hour watching the sun set
over the lake along with
Tim Welch playing cocktail
music. Donation is $350
pesos per person which
includes hors d’oeuvres,
and a three course dinner along with tea or coffee, regular or decaf. The
funds raised benefit the
students of this Tecnico
Jaltepec Centro Educativo Students
Universario en Hoteleria.
Please RSVP by March 13 to Linda Buckthorp at buckthorp@laguna.com.mx or call 7661631 to make reservations or for menu information.
March 23, 7 pm, the Festival of Music Song and Dance will be at the Auditorio de
la Ribera and feature prominent musicians from the Lakeside area. Tickets are 100 pesos
and sold at the Auditorio.
March 23, 24 and 25, at 4 pm, Shirley Appelbaum directs Nuts written by Tom
Topor. The play is a courtroom drama with a great sense of comedy. It is a suspense,
psychological, and courtroom drama that explores abuse issues, family and social power
dynamics, and aspects of the criminal court system. It was staged off-off-Broadway in
1979 and transferred to Broadway the following year. A 1987 film adaptation stars Barbra
Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss. Ticket prices are donations of 80 pesos. The Naked
Stage is located in the Plaza de la Ribera on Rio Bravo. Reservations are required.To
make reservations, call 766-5986. If you need to cancel, please do so a day in advance.
Box Office opens at 3:15
and the show starts at
4:00pm.
March 27, 7 pm,
and March 28 at 4 pm,
the Los Cantantes del
Lago Spring concert
“Prisms” is at the Auditorio de la Ribera.
You can purchase 250
peso tickets at the LCS
ticket booth and from
any Los Cantantes
member or email cantantesdellago@gmail.
com. This is our 10th anniversary concert year
with a mix of old and
new and lots of fun.
April 7 – 16, LakeSex Please, We Are Sixty
side Little Theatre
(LLT) presents a farce about sex and aging in the time of little blue pills: Sex Please,
We Are Sixty. Written by Susan and Michael Parker, and directed by Pat Carroll.”A newly
developed, little blue pill, just for menopausal women gets in the wrong hands and the
prim and proper Rose Cottage Inn will never be the same… and neither will Bud the
Stud.” Purchase tickets at the Theatre from 10 to noon starting Thursday, April 5. Performances begin at 7:30 pm, and the bar opens at 6:30 pm. Sunday matinees at 3 pm. For
more information, visit their website: www.lakesidelittletheatre.com.
Ticket Info
You can purchase tickets from the LCS ticket booth, Diane Pearl, Charter Club and
the Auditorio as follows:
The LCS (Lake Chapala Society) ticket booth is open Monday through Friday from
10 am to Noon.
Diane Pearl Colecciones is located at corner of Colon and Ocampo in Ajijic, and tickets can be purchased 10 to 5 pm Monday through Saturday, and noon to 3 pm on Sunday.
Charter Club Tours is located in Plaza Montana, on the main street and Colon. Tickets
can be purchased from 10 to 5 pm Monday through Friday and Saturday from 10 to 1pm.
Auditorio de la Ribera del Lago is located on the lake side of the Carretera in La Floresta and tickets can be purchased from 9 to 5 pm Monday through Saturday.

Saw you in the Ojo 51

What Handicap?
By Kay Davis

B

ANG! The small
child hit the ground,
blood oozing from a
hole in his head. But he was
breathing. Scooped into someone’s arms, he was rushed to a
hospital. The hours ticked by.
Finally the doctor emerged
from the operating room. The
boy’s life was spared and it
appeared his faculties were
intact, but the bullet had cut
right through his optic nerve,
severing any visual images forever. A small, black world encompassed him. He was blind.
Perhaps having such a close
call made death seem an everpresent possibility for Burns. He
grew into a man driven to live
fully. An educated man, too, he
taught English at university. Poetry was his specialty. He had an
ability to turn words into pictures
he imagined, pictures often representing feelings common to us all.
The visual void that wrapped
around him was enlarged by
sound that titillates the imagination and sometimes vibrates in
the bones. Scent and taste tell the
substance of things, and touch
provides dimension and shape.
At the airport we picked up
Burns and Valora, his wife, and
took them to the home of friends,
Stan and Shirley, in Ajijic. All four
live in a perpetually dark world.
Dinner was on the agenda for the
evening, prepared by the host
and hostess. Following dinner
was a tour of the home. Not for
us, of course. We were preparing
to leave by then. But we watched
and learned.
Shirley placed Valora’s hand on
the newel post at the top of the
stairs. Valora tapped her feet to
feel the edge of the step.
Meanwhile Stan was guiding
Burns down the left side of the
staircase where it makes a sharp
turn using three pie-shaped steps,
wide on one side, tightly closed
on the other. Burns tapped with
his cane to feel the shape and
height of them.
Furniture arrangement in the

52

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

home was simple, none of it intruding on walkways but within
reach if they became disoriented.
The kitchen was tidy. Cooking is
something Shirley and Stan do for
themselves...with a gas stove and
a BBQ.
Clearly most tasks are done
by feel while the sighted depend
heavily on the visual. Prior to dinner we had sat with cocktails. I
had looked from the upstairs terraza into the garden below, then
watched the sky turn from blue
to indigo as birds silently winged
their way to their accustomed
night perches. And as the sky
yielded to black and stars began
twinkling, we had gone inside.
They could smell the blossoms
and, if the birds called out, they
could hear their musical tones,
but the sky’s changing colors and
the textures in the garden eluded
their senses.
Ignorant of how blind people
adapt, I watched each of them
eat. I’m not sure their methods
were much different from ours,
but one thing they all did was to
touch the food lightly to locate
what they wanted. Napkins were
always at hand.
A significant difference, however, was in how to handle the
drink. We, the sighted, reach for a
glass of wine but also look for its
location, not wanting to knock it
over. The blind, it seems, feel for
the base of the wine glass or, say, a
coffee cup, barely touching it with
the fingertips and then reaching
higher to grasp it. Putting it down
again there was a slight hesita-

tion in finding the table top and
in determining whether the calculated reach had resulted in an
open spot where it would be easily found for the next sip. Order is
important.
Would I be able to look after
myself if I were blind? Would I
have an active social life? Would
I hike, dance, cook, entertain?
Would I become adept at creative
writing on a Braille computer,
reading it back as fast as one of
you might read? Would I have the
courage to board an airplane in
order to teach in schools where

I was not familiar with the town,
let alone the school? Because I
can see, there is so much I take for
granted.
But it is not only vision that I
accept as normal. I am as healthy
as anyone retired can be. Nonetheless, we retirees are vulnerable
to injury or handicap from illness.
Losing our capabilities frightens
us, yet we do the best we can, and
when confronted with challenge,
the courageous among us say,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;What handicap?â&#x20AC;? for normal was
never guaranteed. Life is precious
when we truly live it.

Saw you in the Ojo 53

THE MAGIC OF ISABEL ALLENDE
By Rosamaria Casas

I

n Isabel Allende’s books,
the real world of her family and history and the
fictional world of character and
plot are inextricably twined.
The House of the Spirits meanders
through four generations of her
own family, its dramas reflecting
the social and political changes
of her country of origin, Chile. In
the lnfinite Plan, her characters live
in modern Los Angeles, suffering to
adapt their Latin habits to the demands of the American way of life.
No one, perhaps not even the
author, can say just what is true and
what is a fantastic elaboration of the
facts. The great rambling house in
which the first novel is mostly set is

54

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

based on her grandparents’ house
in Santiago, where she spent her
childhood. Clara, the clairvoyant
who converses with spirits and can
move objects at will, is based on her
grandmother: “She held seances every day with her spiritualist friends.
Nobody thought it was weird.” Esteban, the violent-tempered landowner and senator who supports a
coup and then is sickened by its brutalities, is, to a large extent, like her
real grandfather. It was for him that
she began writing about the family.
In a recent interview she said: “He
was a wonderful grandfather, a very
hard, tough guy, though not cruel in
the way I made him out in the book.
He was a true Spaniard of Basque
origin. I wanted to be strong like
him. We disagreed on many things.
In his heart he believed that he and
his land owning class had the right
to rule, to be privileged. Of course I
reject his way of thinking.”
Jung said that he could not explain his own life in scientific terms
because human life is about myth.

This is what Isabel Allende claims—
that she uses her family as an excuse to exaggerate, to make fiction.
When she tries to stick to the facts
she fails, the characters take over
when she is writing and she is powerless to control them. She has to
follow them, to go where they want
to go.
The House of the Spirits is a book
which obsesses people. Modern literature students have made dozens
of dissertations based on this book,
many newspaper articles have
been published about it. A film has
been made in the USA. When she
was asked what is this “magic realism” in her literature, she answered:
“Let’s be clear what magic realism
means. It’s not a literary device that
applies to Latin American writers
alone. Magic realism is in literature.
Things are magic but at the same
time they are real. Magic realism really means allowing a place in literature to the invisible forces that have
such a powerful place in life, such as
dreams, myth, legend, passion, obsession, superstition, religion, the
overwhelming power of nature and
the supernatural.
“All these are present in preColombian poetry, Hindu sagas,
Arab tales, and used to be pres-

ent in Western literature up to the
Gothic novel and Edgar Allen Poe.
Only in the past few decades have
they been excluded by white male
authors who decided that whatever
cannot be controlled does not exist.”
When someone asked her about
her methodology for writing, she
simply said: “If a writer sits alone in
a room for eight or ten hours a day,
she creates something like a magnetic field. It’s as if there are stories
inside you which you don’t know
you have.”
This is the bottom line. Do you
want to write? Sit several hours a
day, alone in a room, in front of your
typewriter or PC and let your unconscious come to the surface. Easier said than done! As a teacher of
creative writing once said, “unconscious is shy, elusive and unwieldy,
but it is possible to learn to tap it at
will and even to direct it.” Some writers talk about having a vision, others
of dreaming their characters, others
construct them step by step, like a
mason building a wall, one brick after the other, a slow, painful process
that produces books like The House
of the Spirits, which took Isabel Allende eight years of thinking about
it before she sat down in front of the
typewriter!

Saw you in the Ojo 55

By Bob Tennison

M

ary and Johnny Rivers,
after many years of
trying and hoping, had
just become the parents of a beautiful baby girl. Mary had always
wanted a girl, but Johnny didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care
as long as the baby was healthy (and
preferably beautiful, which this one
was). Mary just knew that if she gave
the baby an exotic name she would
be exactly that, and so she named
her India.
Mary thought that name was very
exotic, but as the child grew up India
turned out to be exotic and erotic
as well. By the time India was in her
senior year of high school, she was
called The Lay of the Land, because

56

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

she had slept with all of, and only,
the handsome boys from wealthy
families. No other boys were even
considered.
Her parents considered the
things they heard to be simply ugly
rumors, prompted by jealously. But
by the time India was twenty-four
she had been married and divorced
three times, to extremely wealthy
men, who collectively left her with
a bank account she never imagined
possible. Soon her acting career skyrocketed with awards in both Hollywood and New York, and she was
usually filming one movie, while another was waiting for her.
The wives living on Diamondback Road were horrified when they
learned India had bought the old
Chrysler Mansion in their neighborhood. It especially upset Patricia
Martin, whose husband Gregory was
undoubtedly the handsomest man
in the area and who had been fighting off women most of his adult life.
That India was living in the Chrysler
Mansion next door was exciting to
Gregory but not to Patricia.
Hoping to make as favorable
impression as possible on the local
wives, India hired a stretch limousine, invited all of them on a studio
tour, and then took them all to lunch
at the one restaurant she knew they
could never afford. Before leaving,
she presented each with a box of expensive chocolates and a copy of her
latest film yet to be released to the
public.
When their phone rang at six
oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock one morning Patricia, as she
always did, assumed there had been
a death in the family. But it was far
more upsetting than that. It was India, asking to speak to her husband.
Gregory went into his office so as to
let Patricia go back to sleep (impossible), and after a brief conversation

he returned to tell her India’s car
would not start and he was taking
her to the studio for an urgent call. It
wouldn’t take too long, he told her as
he quickly dressed and left to rescue
the damsel in distress.
To Patricia it seemed Gregory was
gone for hours, but when he did finally returned he told her he had
stopped for coffee and breakfast on
the way home so that Patricia could
sleep in. Spring break had just begun. Patricia was a professor at the
University of Southern California and
had spent a very busy few months.
That was plausible, Patricia thought.
Gregory was a newscaster for the six
and ten o’clock broadcasts and had
his days basically free.
Patricia was excited about going
to New Mexico for the first time, as
president of her Bridge Club. But it
was bad timing for Patricia because
India had invited Gregory and Patricia to a formal dinner honoring the
new governor’s election and India.
Since Patricia would be out of town,
India insisted Gregory come alone.
Patricia had to agree as she felt it
was important for his newscasting
position and he had already covered
the inauguration. This would be an
excellent opportunity for Gregory to
spend some time with the governor

personally.
When Patricia returned from New
Mexico, she listened to the stories
about all of the celebrities who had
attended, and she was sorry she had
missed the party. Putting her clothes
away, she noticed Gregory’s tuxedo
needed cleaning and pressing. Going through the jacket pockets, she
found a three-pack of glow-in-thedark condoms with one missing.
There was no doubt in her mind
where the missing one had gotten
to. Rather than reveal what she had
discovered, she just hung the tuxedo
back in the closets.
Gregory would never forget the
day Patricia came running into the
house, hugging him, kissing him,
dancing around and shouting, “You’ll
never believe what happened. I just
won the lottery. Millions and millions. Start packing.”
Equally as excited, Gregory hurried upstairs, returning to the living
room less than an hour later with
two huge suitcases. Patricia was sitting in front of the TV watching the
news. “Have you finished already?”
he asked her.
In a very cheerful voice, smiling
like she was the happiest woman in
the world, she answered, “Why? I’m
not going anywhere.”

Saw you in the Ojo 57

Chico’s Lakeside Death by Starvation (Almost)
By Jim Dickinson

Before

W

hen I first saw the
thing that cold, predawn January morning I couldn’t tell what it was. It was
a dim, shivering gray face with pale
bat-like wings, peering out from the
blackness under our cargo trailer,
hard against one of the wheels, as
if for support. It disappeared when
Mimi, our Golden Retriever, ran up to
bark at it.
After I had returned Mimi and our
other Golden, Bucky, to the warmth of
our roadside home north of Chapala,
I went back to the trailer and found
the face’s owner shivering against another wheel on the opposite side. It
was the scrawniest, most pathetic animal I had ever seen, lying stretched
out on the cold ground. I couldn’t tell
if it was alive, until I touched its shivering neck and it moved its head to
avoid the contact. In the improving
light, I felt it was a tiny dog with no
fur, just cold blotchy skin covering its
lifeless bones.
There were two things I could
do, I thought — Put it out of it misery with a nearby rock to its head, or
see if it would eat some of our dogs’
food. I chose the latter, and brought
a handful of Pedigree out and placed
it on the ground near the dog’s nose.
He was too weak to stand, so he slid
himself over to the Pedigree nuggets
and feebly chewed on three or four of
them before stopping in exhaustion.
By now I could see enough of him
to determine he was a male — and
that his bare skin was almost totally
covered with what I assumed was
mange. I immediately worried that it
could infect our dogs.
His shivering reminded me that I
should find something to wrap him
in, so I went into the house to forage for a blanket we could afford to
lose, but finding none settled on an
old abused towel. I donned a pair of
gloves I hoped would prove mangeproof, wrapped the little waif in the
towel and stuffed the bundle into a
small open-topped basket bin and

58

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

After

left the combination against one
of the trailer wheels where it would
heat up in the thin January sunshine
now spreading across our little corner of Paradise.
After breakfast, my wife Sheila
took our still quivering responsibility
into San Antonio and to the excellent
veterinarian and animal shelter there,
while I sank myself into the World
Wide Web whence cometh our daily
bread.
Sheila called in a few hours to report that the vet had treated the little
dog with various shots, including one
to fight mange, recommended a diet
of puppy food, and urged a return
visit in a few days. The vet figured him
to be a miniature poodle-chihuahua
mix, possibly eighteen months to
three years of age —his emaciated
condition made it hard to say. “The
vet opined that the little dog was
very appreciative to have been rescued.
“We’re on our way home now,”
Sheila told me. It was only then that
I realized our family had a new member, because I’d assumed she would
have dropped the little dog off at the
animal shelter across the street. It reputedly never put down anything.
Now we had several problems,
not the least of which was how Mimi
and Bucky would react. Bucky proved
to be no problem — as a 10-year-old
and lazy fellow, he wasn’t very interested. Five-year-old Mimi, and the
apple of my eye, was a different story.
Instantly jealous of any attention that
wasn’t 100% on her, we had to keep
her at a distance while we nurtured
the skeletal newcomer. He needed
to be fed “at will,” as opposed to Mimi
and Bucky’s rigid twice-a-day schedule.
The next, less pressing issue was
what to name him. We eventually
settled on “Chico” for his smallness
and his masculinity. And what an
oversize masculinity it proved to be!
It grew faster than his body weight,
and we had the unforeseen problem

of house-training and the male-dog
marking of our walls, furniture, and
even on one occasion my trouser leg
as I stood in it!
Over the ensuing days, Mimi’s
jealousy abated under a lot of extra
attention and the carefully phased reduction of Chico’s “at will” mealtimes.
Over all, we spent close to 3,000
pesos in vet bills, after discounts due
to his “rescue” status. Now, at his 38th
day in our company as I write this,
and at twice his found weight, Chico
is the smartest, feistiest, all-aroundhappy, most eager-to-please and
compliant dog we’ve ever known.

Thickening white tufts of silky, curly
hair now cover all of his body. Even
Mimi loves him, and that’s my greatest relief.
We believe he was within hours of
death by starvation when we found
him, and we urge our fellow gringos
to give generously to animal rescue
and care outfits (especially animal
neutering) in our area, as our vet advises that there are many such dogs
abandoned to die as horribly as Chico nearly did, due to the state of the
local economy for poor families who
cannot afford to keep their pets and
their pets’ litters.

Saw you in the Ojo 59

The Poets’ Niche
By Mark Sconce
msconce@gmail.com

Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

A

fter listening to Vincent Price
and Basil Rathbone recite Poe,
I couldn’t recall ever hearing
anything quite so eerie, so chill. But
then, eeriness was Poe’s specialty, and he
became the maestro of horror and the morbid. No, I won’t quoth The Raven evermore, but poetry is our prey and
the game is afoot. Besides, The Raven did make Edgar Allan Poe famous when it was first published in 1845.
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
The peculiar circumstances of his death in 1849* fit comfortably
somehow among his dominant themes: mysterious events, intrigue,
skullduggery, haunted palaces, and the ever-present supernatural. Poe
was more appreciated in Europe where, through the inspired translations of Charles Baudelaire, word went round that Poe was singing
their song—the song of someone who recognizes that reality is essentially subterranean, contradictory to surface reality, and “profoundly irrational in character,” as one historian put it. Some would later hail him
as “the prophet of modern sensibility.” Malevolence, madness and death
came alive under Poe’s queer quill somehow touching our deep-lying
apprehensions.
“Congestion of the brain” finally claimed him, a euphemism in those
days for something more disreputable—like alcoholism.
Hear the loud alarum bells —
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
But then he could turn around and bring tenderness to life as no one
else.
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Poe married his darling cousin, Virginia Clemm, when she was but 13
and he but 27. And when she died of tuberculosis after only 11 years of
a happy marriage, Poe’s life began its downward spiral into too much
alcohol and deep depression. “I became insane, with long intervals of
horrible sanity.” He finds himself descending into a cellar, a wine vault, a
whirlpool, always falling ( The Tell Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum).
He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living
through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
One winter, he and Virginia nearly froze to death.
With the fever that maddened my brain —
With the fever called “Living” that burned in my brain.

60

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

And finally, among his most famous poems:
I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
*Found on a Baltimore street, semi-conscious and
dressed in strange clothes, Poe died four days later crying, “Lord, help my poor soul” but unable to relate exactly what had happened.

Mark Sconce

Hand To Hand
I study my hands
and recall my father’s middle finger,
severed at the first knuckle by a meat grinder.
I always wondered what he felt
and what he did with the hamburger.
I remember the smooth rounded top,
like a bald head,
and wonder now – though I did not then,
how it would have felt
to hold that finger in my small hand.
I remember when my son,
while kneading the huge lawn mower scar on my hand,
announced how much he wanted his own scar.
When a youthful misadventure with a hot glue gun
branded a crescent moon on his hand
I wondered if it was the first and mandatory wound
on his journey to manhood,
for without the wound, the hand of a boy
never grows into the hand of a man.
Now I grasp his labor-roughened ham-like hand and
feel some of the masculine he has earned;
the near miss with a worm drive circular saw,
bruising the bone but sparing the thumb.
I massage my own hands that built our lake cabin:
the never-healed hangnail
from the drill that slipped and drilled through my fingernail.
and how I screamed while my family winced helplessly.
I wish I had caressed Dad’s smooth, rounded stub
and explored the wonder of new skin
that had so replaced the old that no scar appeared.
I wish I knew the place whence
the new skin came to cover the naked bone.
I wish I had asked him if he ever healed.
I wish he had let me touch his wound.
I wish I had wrapped my small hand
around that shortened end
and felt his pain.
Because I didn’t know how to ask then
I think I bear it for him still.
David Bryen

Saw you in the Ojo 61

Enemy Submarines Brought World War II
Home to Both U.S. Coasts

By Dr. Lorin Swinehart

F

ollowing that terrible day,
September 11, 2001, many
pundits observed that it
was the first time the U.S. mainland had been attacked by an enemy since the War of 1812. In the
course of that long ago conflict, the
enemy succeeded in briefly occupying Washington, D.C., long enough to
fire the Executive Mansion and other
federal buildings, sending President
Madison and his wife Dolly fleeing into
the Maryland countryside in a horsedrawn wagon containing the U.S. Constitution and the famous Gilbert Stuart
oil portrait of George Washington.
Some today may know that in
1916, the revolutionary leader Pancho
Villa and his force of Villistas raided the
small town of Columbus, New Mexico. Americans will always remember
the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941.
Down the road a short distance
from where I now live much of each
year, at Kure Beach, North Carolina,
a simple black and white sign marks
the site of an old bromine plant, constructed in 1934 by Ethyl-Dow Corporation for the extraction of bromine
from seawater. Bromine was used in
the manufacture of no-knock gasoline,
including aviation fuel. Nothing marks
the spot now except the sign, and yet,
the site is noteworthy.
On the night of July 24-25, 1943, a
German U-Boat surfaced somewhere
out beyond the reefs and shoals and attempted to bombard the plant. Three
to five rounds were fired from the sub’s
deck gun. All missed their mark, rocketing over Pleasure Island and falling
harmlessly to the west into the Cape
Fear River. No damage was done, and
no casualties resulted from this failed
attempt against America’s wartime
production. Given the worldwide suffering and carnage during the long
awfulness of World War II, the event is a
mere blip on the pages of local history.
The incident is, nevertheless, significant, indicating just how near the violence of World War II came to America’s
shores. It was not uncommon for residents of coastal North Carolina to hear
the thump of exploding depth-charg-

62

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

es and torpedoes at night as Navy and
Coast Guard warships dueled out to
sea with enemy U-Boats. To the north,
on the Outer Banks, it was not unusual
for debris from these confrontations
to wash ashore. It is estimated that
150,000,000 gallons of oil spilled onto
the beaches, blackening the sands and
rendering the water unsafe for swimming.
U-boat is short for the German
word unterseeboot, or submarine. The
typical U-boat carried deck guns and
15 torpedoes. A U-boat could remain
submerged for 60 miles before surfacing for fresh air. Submarine warfare
was not exactly new to American waters.
During World War I, three U-boats
sank ten ships off North Carolina. During the Civil War, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank the new U.S.
warship Housatonic in Charleston Harbor before going to the bottom itself.
During the years 1942 and 1943, 65
U-boats operated along the east coast,
sinking or damaging 397 U.S. and British ships and causing 5000 casualties.
The Gulf of Mexico was visited by 20 Uboats, sinking another 56 ships. The region soon became known as Torpedo
Junction. Tourists and residents along
the Carolina coast were admonished
to turn off their lights after dark and
cover their auto headlights with black
tape, so as to prevent Nazi craft from
locating mainland targets.
Throughout most of our history,
America’s position between two vast
oceans protected us from invasion,
creating a false sense of invulnerability. The War of 1812 and the 2001 attack on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon stand as exceptions to the rule.
The threats to mainland America during World War II may have been slight,
but they did chip away at our sense of
comfortable isolation. At one point, a
Japanese submarine surfaced on the
West Coast and lobbed shells at the
mainland.
The Japanese also released balloon-bombs, hoping to cause some
destruction along the Pacific coast and
weaken American moral. One of these
probably triggered a forest fire, and

another may have caused the deaths
of a woman and child. The Japanese
actually shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon,
but only damaged a baseball field and
some power lines. At one point, the
Japanese submarine 1-26 fired upon
the Estevan Point Lighthouse in British Columbia but missed. On September 9, 1942, a Japanese submarine
launched a float plane that dropped
two incendiary bombs along the coast
of Oregon in an attempt to ignite a forest fire.
Along with the very real danger
created by Nazi submarines was the
fear of spies and saboteurs infiltrating
U.S. society. On May 26, 1942, four German saboteurs landed on Long Island,
New York, with boxes of explosives and
plans to disrupt U.S. industry and manufacturing. On June 17, 1942, four were
landed at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Their targets included railroads, canals,
and aluminum and magnesium plants.
The members of both units were arrested by the F.B.I. Six were sent to the
electric chair, one was sentenced to life
in prison at hard labor, and the other
sentenced to 30 years. In 1948, the
two surviving prisoners were deported
back to Germany. Two spies were sent
ashore in Maine in 1944, but were immediately captured.
Submarine warfare, together with

the few infiltrators, spurred rumors
along the coast. One provided the plot
for the children’s book Taffy of Torpedo
Junction, by Nell Wise Wechter, the
story of a thirteen year old Cape Hatteras girl, her pony and her dog tracking down a gang of Nazi spies. Whether stories of German infiltrators were
exaggerated or not, the commander
of the U-boat on July 1943, knew the
structure at Kure Beach was a plant
that provided a necessary ingredient
for aviation fuel, and he was willing to
risk his ship and the lives of his crew in
an attempt to destroy it.
With increased patrols by U.S. Navy
and Coast Guard planes, ships and
blimps and with the formation of convoys to transport war materials safely
across the Atlantic, U-boat activities
became less common in North American waters. U.S. forces sank four Uboats along the Carolina coast alone.
Today, an estimated 60 wrecks from
the World War II era dot the ocean bottom along the Carolina coast, mute
reminders of a time when war came
home to everyday Americans. As for
the old Bromine plant, another sign
has now appeared on the patch of
vacant land, informing us that a large
condo will soon be constructed on the
site.

t Lakeside, the earth’s diversity, vivid colors and
organic textures enrich
our lives. They are our markers, the
frame in which our living takes place.
My hope is that this brief look at the
history of landscapes will encourage
readers to reconnect their spiritual
and emotional ties with the mysterious and sometimes savage world that
nurtures us.
Humanity’s cave paintings were
fluid and natural in form. But as settled
communities developed, artists used
simplified and abstracted human and
animal forms in bands, or multiple
ground lines read from bottom up to
tell their story. The lowest band was

64

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

the underworld, and the top band the
heavens. Classical Roman frescoes returned to observations of nature with
mythological overtones but maintained multiple ground lines to position humans and animals within the
painting. During the Middle Ages,
landscapes became mere stage sets
for biblical stories. And even as the
Renaissance flourished, powerful art
academies in Italy and France discouraged landscapes that lacked biblical
or mythological themes.
Artists in the Netherlands ignored
the dictates of academies and focused
instead on the natural world and its
occupants. Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s
(1525-1569) landscapes, depicting the
life of common people, revolutionized
western painting. Through the power
of his vision, Brueghel magically transports the observer back in time into
a world that remains eternally alive
(photo).
Many of the standards for landscape paintings that endure today are
the result of Brueghel’s understandings. Landscapes are entered from the
lower quadrant. Perspective creates
the illusion of three dimensions as
planes and lines converge in the distance. Closer objects overlap distant
objects. Distant objects diminish in
scale and are lighter and less defined.
Warmer colors move forward, cooler
colors away from the viewer.
In 1800, artist Pierre-Henri de
Valenciennes wrote in his Elements
de Perspective Pratique, “landscapes
should be based on studies of the natural world.” Following Valenciennes,
Nicolas Poussin’s studies of nature
coupled with the expressive works of
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) opened
the way to even more radical, tactile
works by Charles Daubigny. By the
late 19th century, Impressionists Monet and Renoir and post-impressionists
Cezanne and Van Gogh, following the
lead of Courbet and Daubigny, used
visible brush strokes, vivid hues, simplified forms and keen observation to
create landscapes that exploded with
light, permanently changing human

perception of nature.
Cezanne
(18391906)
disassembled
the natural landscape
and reassembled it using geometric planes
and prisms along with
sensitive, exploratory
brush strokes that impart a solid feel to the
land. The result was
the depiction of a natural world unique in
human history.
By the end of the
19th century, Matisse
dominated the poetic landscape using juxtaposed planes of color and
pattern, while Wassily Kandinsky
(1866-1944) continued the revolution
begun by the Impressionists by reordering color, space and form to evoke
the land rather than render it. His use
of multiple perspectives, anticipating
Picasso, enabled the artist to observe
the land from simultaneous vantage
points. Kandinsky wrote, ”music is
the only pure art form,” divining the
move toward abstract expressionism that swept through the 20th century. Following Kandinsky, Graham
Sutherland ’s Black Landscapes, reminiscent of the Apocalyptic works of
John Martin (1789-1854), helped set a

darker tone for the last half of the 20th
century. (photo at top).
www.wassilykandinsky.net
Good landscapes continue to reflect humanity’s spiritual and emotional connection with the land while
confirming that the fine arts uniquely
lead humanity towards a richer perception of the earth
we occupy.
Link to Paintings
mentioned in this article https://plus.
Rob Mohr
google.com/photos/111258927866130698336/
albums/5710100591418977777

Saw you in the Ojo 65

K WA N G C H O W
KWANGCHOW
Novel by David Harper
Review by Rob Mohr

D

avid Harper’s first novel,
Kwangchow, is an unforgettable story of Freddy
Everard’s life from youthful naiveté to a maturity reminiscent of
John Fowles’ Daniel Martin’s return
to his authentic being. The central
character, Freddy, (the name grows
on you) is a young third officer on
a large Hong-Kong based British
freighter with a Chinese crew.
Unknown to all but the ship’s captain, our hero is also an undercover
British naval officer sent to spy on
Chinese shipping. Freddy approaches life at sea with believable innocence. Unaware of the challenges
of shared responsibility for a heavy
freighter, and the consequences of
his role as spy, a series of traumatic
events which include being taken
captive, transform his naiveté into a
mellowed understanding of his own
values.
While the first chapter lacks focus,
the subsequent writing is smooth
and effortless, offering a complex
detailed story that held my interest
from beginning to end.
The novel begins as Freddy faces
Captain Marshal’s suspicion and dislike, while Andy, the chief officer,
sensing the captain’s reserve - not
unlike Thomas Heggen’s Mr. Roberts
- helps and encourages the young
officer in opposition to Andy. Bill
Nicholls, the chief engineer below
deck, gleefully leads the hero shoreward to places and women of questionable value. The tension between
above deck and below deck officers
is palpable.
On his first solo watch tension
builds as Freddy has to navigate the
heavy freighter through thousands
of Chinese fishing vessels without
sinking the fragile ships. From that
point on, the author’s understanding
of the writer’s craft, and his first-hand
experience as an officer on a British merchantman, enable the story
to flow with an urgency that is sustained throughout.
One fascinating encounter is
with the inimitable Gurdon, a classic double agent whose loyalties are
in doubt. Gurdon, a friend of Mao’s,
has for mysterious reasons, been in
China since the early 1920’s.
The reader’s interest is held fast as
Freddy engages a world dominated
by the sea and filled with adventure,

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El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

conflict, love and hope. In the vein of
Richard Hughes’s Hazard, and Joseph
Conrad’s sea stories, David Harper’s
novel successfully draws a vivid portrait of men thriving in the austere
and perilous conditions of life at sea.
In especially insightful moments
the inscrutable actions of the Chinese crew, whose loyalty is not clear,
test the mettle of the ships officers in
unexpected ways.
Three well-developed female
characters, Anna, Freddy’s first love
back in London; the tantalizing
Lilli in Hong Kong; and Heather, an
Australian nurse working in primitive Rabaul, who follows Freddy to
Brisbane, play key roles in Freddy‘s
development. Harper breathes life
into their unresolved needs and their
conflicted relationship with Freddy.
These interactions with Freddy give
the story weight and serve as relief
from intense shipboard action.
The details about the lives and
relationships among the crew, the
ship and its workings, and the sight
and sounds of the Far East are captivating. New conflicts emerge daily in
encounters with greedy port authorities and corrupt Chinese systems,
along with a classic sea adventure in
which the ship, caught in the Straits
of Taiwan, enters the vortex of three
converging typhoons. For anyone
who enjoys a great book of the sea
this is a must read.
My own reading about the sea
began with Moby Dick and the Hornblower series. However since reading
Kwangchow, I am convinced that more
contemporary sea tales offer equally
exciting adventures.
The book can be bought at:
Dianne Pearl Colecciones
Book Store at Plaza Bugambilias
Enrique Velazquez Art Studio
Coffee & Bagels
American Legion

Saw you in the Ojo 67

FRONT ROW CENTER
By Michael Warren
Nostalgia

C

urrently A Taste of
Broadway is running
at the Lakeside Little
Theatre, and consequently my
review of the show will not appear till the beginning of April.
This month I am able to indulge
in personal nostalgia for some of
the excellent plays and musicals I
have enjoyed at LLT over the past
10 years.
There have been so many memorable evenings – it’s hard to pick
out only a few. Certainly Doubt was
one of the best plays to appear on
the Lakeside stage in recent years.
Cleverly written and very well
acted, the dramatic force of the
play left the audience with much
to think about and discuss. Sister
Aloysius thinks that there is a danger to a Catholic school, because of
a popular priest’s ambiguous relationship with a troubled student.
She may have to be prepared to lie
for the greater good - or perhaps
she deceives herself as to what is
good. The play asks many questions, making us examine our own
preconceived ideas, and finally
leaves us in a turmoil of doubt.
An Inspector Calls, from 2004
was also very good – though perhaps I am biased because I acted
in the play. It’s a morality play by
the English playwright J.B.Priestley,
and it poses the age-old question “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
In the play, the older generation is
mostly concerned with maintaining outward appearances, while
the younger people ask deeper
ethical questions. Although the
play was written in 1944, Priestley
places the action in 1912, giving
an added poignancy to the smugness of this typical British family.
We know – what is unknown to the
characters in the play – that they
are standing on a precipice. Soon
the Titanic will sink, the First World
War will begin, millions will die and
horror will be unleashed on the
world. And Priestley suggests that
a ruthless and uncaring society will
be doomed to failure.
There have been countless entertaining comedies and farces,
including Caught in the Net from

68

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

2006, and last year’s production of
Blithe Spirit. But the recent show
How the Other Half Loves was undoubtedly the cream of the crop.
My recent review will serve to remind you of my admiration for this
excellent comedy – I will simply
add that this production could easily match anything on Broadway or
London’s West End.
Over the years, I am sad to say
that few murder mysteries have
been performed here. In this category, I enjoyed Agatha Christie’s
The Hollow, which was performed
in 2009. The country house atmosphere and staging were very well
done, and there was a clever twist
to the plot though naturally Hercule Poirot was not deceived. Perhaps because I am British, I enjoy a
clever murder mystery with devious clues and red herrings, and a
surprise denouement at the end. In
my opinion, Witness for the Prosecution was Agatha Christie’s best play,
and perhaps one day it will be performed at LLT to the delight and
surprise of paying customers.
Finally, the musicals! I cannot
begin to talk about the wonderful musicals without mentioning
the amazing Anya Flesh. She was
a hard task mistress, and she got
results. Perhaps Quilters and Cabaret were her finest achievements,
although it is hard to choose from
among so many entertaining evenings of musical theater. I particularly remember the stunning ending of Cabaret, with the audience
left in darkness and no curtain call.
And so – onward and upward!
We are fortunate to have so many
talented and hardworking directors, actors, stage managers and
backstage people in this town.
I look forward
to many more
memorable
evenings at the
Lakeside Little
Theatre.
Michael Warren

Dead Horse Theory

T

he tribal
wisdom
of the
Dakota Indians,
passed on from generation to generation,
says that, “When you discover
that you are riding a dead horse,
the best strategy is to dismount.
However, in government, education, and in corporate America,
more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to
study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride
dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so
that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse
as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to
ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead
horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase
dead horse’s performance.
10. Doing a productivity study
to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead
horse does not have to be fed, it is
less costly, carries lower overhead
and therefore contribute substantially more to the bottom line of
economy than do some other horses
12. Rewriting the expected
performance requirements for all
horses.
And of course....
13. Promoting the dead horse
to a supervisory position.

ART I:
NUTRITION AND AGING
Throughout life, nutrition
is an important determinant of health,
physical and mental function, vitality,
overall quality of life, and longevity. The
quantity and variety of available foods,
as well as the meaningfulness of the social interactions provided by meals, are
important to psychological well-being.
The composition of the diet and the
amount of food consumed are strongly
linked to psychological function. When
a well-balanced diet is not maintained,
malnutrition may develop, with consequent detrimental effects on health and
well-being.
Malnutrition can have many manifestations. The greater the magnitude
and duration of nutritional deprivation and the more fragile the individual,
the more likely the occurrence of noticeable body compositional changes,
functional impairments, or over disease
caused by nutritional deficits.
Even borderline dietary deficiencies may have important health consequences, such as producing subtle
organ systemic impairments, causing
diminished vitality, or increasing an
individual`s susceptibility to disease.
Protein and protein-energy under-nutrition are two of the most common, frequently unrecognized, and potentially
serious forms of nutritional deficiency.
Although there is a complex interrelationship among nutrition, disease,
and clinical outcome, protein and protein-energy under-nutrition appears to
be a significant contributor to diseaserelated to facility status to disease predisposition and mortality in these populations groups.
At the other end of the spectrum,
the persistent consumption of excess
quantities of one or more nutrients can
have similar untoward consequences.
Forms of malnutrition that result from
excess consumption include hypervitaminosis (excess of vitamin consumption) and obesity.
Studies indicate that obesity is the
most common nutritional disorder of
advanced age in western societies, with
a high prevalence among non-institutionalized (not in hospital or nursing

70

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

homes) free-living elderly people. Many
obese older individuals have other nutritional disorders as well.
Under-nutrition is a common, serious, and frequently unrecognized problem that can develop for many reasons
including an imbalanced diet, disease,
and inactivity.
WHAT IS A HEALTHFUL DIET?
Not many subjects are of consuming interest to virtually all of us-but food
is certainly one of them. It is one of the
principal pleasure of life and also a lifegiving essential. Without the continual
replacement of nutrients in our bodies,
we would die.
Food is so important that from time
immemorial it has formed the basis of
ritual in every society is the abundance
and quality (or lack thereof) of its food.
As recently as 50 years ago, the focus of nutrition research was to fight
malnutrition and diseases caused by a
lack of basic nutrients. Today the situation is changing, and overconsumption
has replaced deficiency as America`s
leading nutrition problem.
In these articles I try to explain basic
concepts and information on how your
body uses food, correct weight control,
and how to eat properly when faced
with disease. You will need to talk to a
Registered Dietitian here in Mexico. To
obtain this Credential, a person must
earn an undergraduate degree in a fouryear program in Food Science and Nutrition at an Accredited College or University, complete six to twelve months
of accredited or approved training in
practical aspects of dietetics, and take
a National Examination. In addition,
registered Dietitians must complete 75
Hours of professional education every
five years. Some States have licensing
procedures, and a dietitian may also be
licensed under the regulations of the
state health department.
Usually your
local health department or physician can refer
you to a competent dietitian. To
Be Continued
Dr. C
D
Cordova
d

THE
T
HE P
PHOENIX
HOENIX
By Louise Drummond

(

E

d. Note: This is Ms.
Drummond’s
Introduction to her soonto-published book entitled The
Phoenix. Our readers should be
warned that what follows is brutally candid.)
My first memories are of violence: my father toward my mother,
and both of them toward us children. Incest started on my fourth
birthday. This went on all during the
years my childhood, until my father
fled to another state because he
was reported for molesting a child
outside of the family.
I don’t have to tell anyone who
has been through that kind of life
how frightening and confusing it is.
I began drinking alcohol for relief
before I was out of high school. Two
pregnancies resulted, but I hated
sex. I had a child but was unaware
of my adult status. I ran away with a
man to save myself, and he shot me,
then a year later committed suicide.
I would like to tell you that I was
a good person anyway, but I was
not. I tried to be, but the need to
control my environment and the
models I used to do it, made me act
as a self-centered bully all too much
of the time.
Nor was I honest. I began stealing in childhood, and then graduated to cheating on my taxes, then to
stealing my daughter’s inheritance.
There was little about me that was
likeable. I was giving back to the
world exactly what it had done to
me. I still feel shame over some of
what I did.
I became addicted to alcohol
after my husband’s suicide. I was in
yet one more relationship where I
was letting myself be dominated
and the effect of sweet wine was
a distraction. I had a two year run,
that time. I saw a psychiatrist for a
couple of years. We talked about a
lot of this stuff, but I never could get
in touch with my emotions about
the incest and never told him how
much I was drinking. I did learn that,
as an adult, I was a victim by choice
and took responsibility for my life.
Later, I discovered marijuana. It
has some very interesting effects,

among them calming post-traumatic stress. Luckily, I was living in
an idyllic village where I felt every
little threat; that allowed me to concentrate my attention on my internal processes. And, it showed me
the beauty in life. I began to center.
Another stint of alcoholism and
I wound up in Alcoholics Anonymous, thank God! I had been going
to Vedanta lectures, attending an
incest therapy group, volunteering
at an abused women’s shelter, and
I was looking for life to present me
with the way to quit drinking. AA
clearly knew how not to drink.
Not only have I been free of alcohol for twenty-nine years, I have
learned a way of life that makes life
worth living. As addiction is an elevator ride to the agonies of hell,
recovery through the methods of
the 12-Step programs leads to freedom and joy. One learns that there
are choices available that had been
unimaginable before. Most important of all is incremental change
in a safe and usually nurturing environment. All of the Anonymous
programs use the same methods.
They work for any problem because
they concentrate on solutions. The
past is important only to understand the present. And, your best
effort, made day by day, or minute
by minute basis, is good enough on
the spiritual plain.
I believe that there is a benign
universe and when we free ourselves of the pain of the past, we
put ourselves into alignment with
natural forces, for in all the world,
there is only now, this minute. I believe that there can be forgiveness
and redemption. Amazing Grace is
available if one asks for it and is willing to practice doing the next right
thing, with a little help from friends
who have been there and know the
way.

Saw you in the Ojo 71

THE GREGARIOUS HERMIT
—Living in a Town with Few Gringos
By Roberta Rich

O

n December 15th, 1999, as
our plane descended into
the Manzanillo airport,
I took my husband’s hand in mine
and said, “In the next two weeks, we
must either buy a house in Mexico or
never speak of it again.”
“Deal,” he replied.
Colima was on our ‘short list’ for livable quiet towns in Mexico— a small,
provincial capital of about 165,000,
lovely winter climate, and accessible
from either Guadalajara or Manzanillo
airport.
We checked into the Ceballos Hotel, the old colonial style hotel on the
main square across from the cathedral,
and began our quest for the perfect
house. We spoke just enough Spanish
to get ourselves into trouble and not
enough to get us out as you will see.
We soon discovered there were no
real estate agent in town. Not one. The
accepted practice for selling property
seemed to be a peso sign chalked onto
the side of a house. I was staring into
someone’s adobe house when a young
boy of about eighteen, rode up on his
bike and asked, in Spanish, “What are
you looking for?”
“A house,” I replied.
“To buy or rent?”
“Buy,” I said, dizzy from the midday
sun and walking around without a hat.
“Come with me.”
“It’s beer-thirty,” said my husband.
“I want a house.” I trailed off after
the boy.
Soon we came to a stucco wall with
a door in the middle. Behind this door

72

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

Roberta
R
oberta Rich
could have been a slaughter house or
a palace. The exterior gave not a clue.
The boy, whose name turned out
to be “Jesus,” knocked. A beautiful
Mexican woman opened the door and
stood thunderstruck at the sight of
two very tall gringos. She ushered us in
and called for her daughter Paty who
spoke fluent English.
Paty explained her father, Pedro,
was a builder and had a house for
sale on the other side of the wall. She
showed it to us. I got the feeling my father used to call ‘Rich’s Law of Instant
Recognition.’ It was a shell, but an adorable one: two bedrooms, perota wood
beams, hand made tiles, cool, sunny
and rustica. A bougainvillea bloomed
neon red in the front garden and ginger plants guarded the back patio. My
imagination supplied windows, doors,
furniture, more plants, papier maché
figures and hand painted bathroom
sinks.
For the next two weeks we got to
know Paty and her family. One night
they took us to a farmer’s field and
we watched as the Volcan de Fuego
spewed out balls of hot lava.
Paty and her family took it for
granted we would buy the house but

we had not discussed money. Oh, we
knew the asking price but had not negotiated a buying price. This bothered
me. I am known in some quarters, as
‘Never Pay Retail Rich.’ It’s against my
religion to just pay the asking price.
My husband has a very different
view of the world. My daughter used to
say to him, “Ken, I know someone has
to pay retail. But does it always have to
be you?”
“Say something,” I urged him. “At
least tell them we want to pay a thousand dollars less, or make them throw
in the vacant lot next door.”
“This is what we shall do,” said Ken,
“We will pay full price but I will explain
to Pedro you are being difficult, which
you are, and that he must replace the
sinks and tiles with handmade ones.”
And so the deal came to pass. And
a good one it was and one that lead to
many New Year parties with mariachi
bands and cauldrons of pozole, visits
from kids and grandkids, boozy dinners, and huge breakfasts.
People often ask what it is like
to live in a town where there are few
other ex-pats. It can be lonely. It makes
you more reliant on your spouse for
companionship. You miss your friends
and family at home, which in our case
is Vancouver, Canada. My husband is
more solitary by nature. He goes on

long bike trips up the volcano.
I need women friends and am developing a circle of friends, both Mexican and gringa. Last month I hosted a
‘girl’s comida’ with five friends. It was a
great success.
Roberta Rich is the author of The
Midwife of Venice, an historical novel
set in the Jewish ghetto in Venice. (Ed.
Note: Published by Random House.
Also available on Amazon/Kindle)
The book is now a NYTimes bestseller, having sold an astounding
70,000 in Canada alone!)

Saw you in the Ojo 73

Luck And Blarney
By Allen McGill

“

S

o, I’ll give you four
wishes,” the leprechaun said to me,
“bein’ it’s St. Paddy’s Day, and all.
And you bein’ the fine Irish lad
that y’are.”
I didn’t know whether to trust
him, leprechauns having the reputations that they do, but I really didn’t
have much choice. I’d trapped him
while he lay asleep beneath a tree.
He’d been smoking those dried
shamrocks, don’t you know, along
with a hefty pint of stout.
“But all the wishes must be
granted today,” he continued. “And
all at once. Sale day, if you will. And
no makin’ a wish that you can have
ten or twenty wishes later on, either.”
I studied the little man. He’d look
silly, ordinarily, wearing his green
knickered suit, white stockings and
buckled shoes, topped off with a
feathered cap. But today he looked
right properly dressed. I let go of his
collar, freeing him after he promised
not to run.
“It’s a deal,” I told him. He didn’t
look all that bright, at least not
enough to fool me, a second-year
college student. “What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked him. Why
aren’t you in Ireland instead of in the
U.S.?”
“I came over to visit relatives in
Boston, nosy,” he replied. “Then I decided to come down to New York to
see what the parade here was like.
Too much celebratin’. Fell asleep
here in Central Park, I did.”
He looked extremely embarrassed, but rallied quickly enough.
“Well, come on. Let’s get on with it.
I have to catch the Aer Lingus flight
back to Shannon in a few hours.
They give us a special rate.”
“All right,” I said, growing a bit impatient myself. “First, I want money,
lots of money, in a suitcase that I can
carry away from the park. American
money in big bills, but not too big.”

74

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

“Fine,” he said. “Give me all your
wishes at once and I’ll grant them
together. I don’t have time to waste.”
“Second, I want an expensive,
rare car waiting for me outside
the park. Then, I want the deed to
an exotic island with beaches and
palm trees that I can use whenever
I want. Finally, I want wisdom to use
all these things to their best advantage.”
“Done,” said the cheerful little
guy. With a snap of his fingers, he
produced a suitcase from nowhere,
a folded sheaf of papers that said
DEED and a car registration. “Here
are all the tangibles you wished for.
As for the wisdom, just keep going
to school and you’ll acquire it.”
“Wait a min....”
“One bit of wisdom I will impart,”
said the man with a twinkle in his
eye. “Never assume you’re smarter
than your elders, m’lad. That’s always
a mistake. Now, I must be goin’. Enjoy the festive day, m’boy. Faith and
begorra.” With a click of his heels, he
whirled into the air and vanished.
I opened the suitcase eagerly, to
find that it was packed with Confederate money, worthless for more
than a hundred years. I opened
the DEED and studied it carefully.
It seemed legal enough, but gave
absolutely no hint as to where the
island might be located. Nor did it
state where the DEED had been issued, no way to track it down.
I dashed from the park to the
street. The car was there all right.
And it was exotic, by some tastes,
and certainly rare. It was an Edsel, a
car that was a dud before it ever hit
the streets.
So much for bein’ a fine Irish lad, I
thought.
“Well, see?” I heard a voice in my
ear. “You’re gainin’ wisdom already.
And here’s one last bit of wisdom for
ya. The luck of the Irish isn’t necessarily good luck, don’t ya know.”

aving visited Venezuela with a particular
interest in the political
situation there, I am incensed by
the increasingly strident cries by
U.S. politicians that its President,
Hugo Chávez, is “a dictator” and
“an enemy of the U.S.” whom the
U.S. should remove (just as it has removed other democratically elected leaders who did not comport
with U.S. corporate interests).
While Chávez certainly has his
faults as a political leader, he is
not a dictator. He has been elected
President four times: in 1998 with
56% of the vote; in 2000, under a
new Constitution, with 60% of the
vote; in a 2004 recall, following an
unsuccessful three-day coup supported by the U.S. in 2002, with
59% of the votes in a 70% turnout;
and in 2006 with 63% of the votes
in a 74% turnout. His elections have
been declared to be free and fair
by international observers, including those from the Carter Center.
He is supported by the majority of
Venezuelans, who are poor, but vehemently opposed by the wealthy
who previously ran the country for
their own benefit.
Chávez is not an enemy of the
U.S., but he is an avowed socialist
who does not want Venezuela to
be controlled by U.S. corporations,
as it and other Central and South
American nations often have been.
In 2004 he persuaded Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, and some
smaller countries to join with Venezuela in the Bolivarian Alliance of
the Americas as an alternative to
the Free Trade Area of the Americas
proposed by the U.S. and intended
to be dominated by it.
In 2008 he led Venezuela and
eleven other nations to form the
Union of South American Nations
as a counter to the Organization
of American States that the U.S.
has dominated. In 2009 he established with other South American
countries the Bank of the South as

an alternative to the International
Monetary Fund that is dominated
by the U.S.
These declarations of independence from the U.S. have incurred
the ire of its corporatist government. Bolivia and Ecuador, and
their democratically-elected presidents, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, are also frequently called “enemies of the U.S.” because they have
joined with Venezuela in defying
it, and the decision of Honduras’s
democratically-elected President,
Manuel Zelaya, to join the Bolivarian Alliance was one of the reasons
for his being removed from office
in 2009 in a coup tacitly supported
by the U.S. The U.S. was quick to
voice its support of the right-wing
replacement government that
promptly withdrew Honduras from
the Alliance. And Venezuela’s huge
oil reserves are not irrelevant to the
attitude of the U.S. government toward Chávez, any more than Iraq’s
oil reserves were irrelevant to the
U.S. invasion of that country.
Gabriel Hetland did his Ph.D.
thesis on and has an article with
that title in the January 30 issue
of The Nation. He reports on the
implementation there of “participatory budgeting,” in which local citizens, not local or national government officials, determine the use of
available financial resources. While
Hetland notes that Chávez’s revolution “is hardly free of contradiction,”
he concludes that “claims about
Hugo Chávez’s dictatorial ways are
overblown” and that “democratic
deepening--in which ordinary
citizens of all political persuasions
are able to participate in decisionmaking in ways that go far beyond
voting in elections--is happening in
Venezuela today.”
The closest analogy to “participatory budgeting” in the U.S. would
be the now mostly gone town
meetings of New England. Merely
having elections does not make the
U.S. a democracy.

Saw you in the Ojo 77

The Words
By Eric Roberts

T

he present-day popular
music is hard to understand. If the music has lyrics,
you have to listen many times to figure
out what is being said. The music is
loud with drums and guitars and it is
not easy to hear the words. The lyrics
are often lost by the way the performers sing. They seem to be more interested in volume than in the words. The
lyrics are often repetitive and without
a story.
The older singers like Frank Sinatra sang with clarity. The words were
important and there was no question
about the meaning of the song. The
song writers also liked the way Fred
Astaire sang. Even though, his voice
was not great, his lyrics were clear and
his interpretations were ‘right on’ to the
story. He introduced two of Sinatra’s
big hits in the movies. “A Foggy day in
London Town” and “One for the Road”
where he plays a tipsy, broken-hearted
lover who dances in a bar and on the
BAR! He asked the bartender to “Set
‘em up Joe, I had a little drink about an
hour ago.”
Some lyrics were created accidentally. The song “Three Coins in the
Fountain” was written for a romantic
film. The three stars throw a coin into
the Trevi Fountain in Rome as they
make a wish. Sammy Cahn and Jule
Styne were asked to write a song to
fit the movie, but they were unable
to see the film or read the script! They
completed the song in about an hour
but they were stuck with the ending.
The last line was: “What will the fountain bring?” It was getting late and
they were in hurry and one of them in
frustration said: “Let’s just repeat the
last line.” The ending is: What will the
Fountain Bring? What will the fountain
Bring?
What will the Fountain Bring?
The next day, they produced a demonstration record with Frank Sinatra.
In a rush to get the film going, Twentieth Century Fox neglected to sign a
contract with the composers, allowing
them to claim complete rights over the
royalties. In 1954, “Three Coins in the
Fountain” won the Academy Award for
the best original song. Pretty good pay
day for an hour’s work!
When they were making a movie

78

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

starring Lisa Minnelli and Robert De
Niro, there was a problem. It was a
love story between a singer and a
saxophone player who had just returned from World War II. The song
writers (John Kander and Fred Ebb)
had composed a title song. They liked
their song as did the director and cast;
except Robert De Niro, who hated the
song. After a couple of days shooting, he threatened to quit the movie
unless they changed the song. The
director told the writers to see if they
could come up with a new song. They
did and if De Niro hadn’t bitched there
wouldn’t be the song. “Start spreading
the news; I’m leaving today. I want to
be part of it ...NEW YORK, NEW YORK!”
Cole Porter’s last musical Kiss Me
Kate is a play within a play. This made
it difficult for him. The play is a musical
take off of Shakespeare’s The Taming
of the Shrew, the other is a backstage
story about the breakup of the two
stars. The type of songs has to vary. In
the “Kiss Me, Kate” play, they have to
sound Shakespearian like “I’ve Come
to Wed Wealthily in Padua.” The backstage story songs are up to date, e.g.,
“It’s too Damn Hot” and “Tom, Dick and
Harry.”
The question is how does the wonderful song “Wunderbar” fit into the
story? At one point, the backstage
couple remembers the good old days
when they were doing a Light Opera
and for fun they hammed up “Wunderbar.” Kate’s sister in the play is “Bianca,” a tough name to rhyme. Her
modern-day name is Bianca too and
her boyfriend has to sing to her. Cole
Porter had to dig deep for a rhyme for
Bianca…SANKA!
Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, author, composer and
pianist. According to The New York
Times, “one of the most prodigiously
talented and successful musicians in
American history.” He was also popular for his series of fifty-three televised
Young People Concerts. His score to

the ballet Fancy Free, choreographed
by Jerome Robbins, opened in New
York in 1944 and this was later developed into the musical On the Town,
with lyrics by Comden and Green that
opened on Broadway in December
1944. In 1949, the choreographer Jerome Robbins suggested the idea for
West Side Story to the writers Arthur
Laurents and Leonard Bernstein. They
worked on it intermittently but finally
with the additions of Stephen Sondheim (famous for “Send in the Clowns”)
to do the lyrics and with a lot of hard
work they brought West Side Story to
Broadway in 1957. Its tremendous suc-

cess remained unequaled by his other
compositions.
Yet with all the accolades for his
body of work, he was missing something. One day he left his house to take
a walk on a lovely spring day and he
heard from across the street someone
singing and whistling “MARIA, I’ve just
met a girl named Maria.” It was the first
time he heard his music being sung
on the street. He then knew his music
would last forever.
(Ed. Note: Point taken. They sure
can’t write songs nearly as well as they
once did!)

Arriving At The Journey
By Dilia Suriel
My journey had been charted
but the detours brought me closer to my destination
I had worked to build a life of comfort
compromising my vitality
I had craved distractions and fun
but was satisfied with joy
I had labored toward sex-appeal
when my longing was for self-acceptance
I believed that money solved all problems
a meager substitute for richness of expression, spirit, passion
I had always sought the approval of others, fame, adulation
when all I needed was self-love
I had thought that if I knew powerful, famous people
I would feel connected
now I am held by genuine friends
I desired importance
while it jeopardized my inner peace
I had hungered for luxuries
when my nourishment is in expression
I chased admiration
accidentally arriving at self-respect
I had achieved success
but felt fulfilled during creative solitude
I had prayed for romantic love
and was given an expansive heat
capable of warming an entire planet

From the Director’s Desk
The Annual General Meeting happened on February 23.
Highlights included a review of our progress in achieving our long
range and strategic goals. We are making significant progress in
most areas, though a lot of work still needs to be done. We will
continue to focus on our annual objectives in pursuit of the long
term goals ratified again at this years meeting. Also ratified was last
years audited budget, presented by Paula Haarvei, recognizing
the annual end of year surplus, the lion’s share of which was then
approved to be shifted to the LCS reserve fund. (The Board has
a 10 year goal of reserving one year of operating support as a
preventative measure that secures LCS’ future from financial
hazard.) The 2012 budget was also reviewed and accepted.
The Nominations Committee, chaired by Nancy Creeven.
presented the slate of new candidates, opened the floor for
additional nominations and having none, the new slate was
elected by acclamation. Howard Feldstein was elected for another
term as President, John Rider is our new Secretary, both Sharon
Smith and Karen Blue were re-elected as Directors-at-Large, and
Ann D. Houck and Erik Slebos were elected for their first terms
as Director-at-Large. The meeting was adjourned before noon. I
congratulate the board on a successful AGM and look forward to
working with the new board.
On to another important subject, the LCS Post Life Program.
We have been reviewing this program for sometime and are
ready to expand the program to include additional (local) funeral
homes. By the end of March the San Francisco Funeral Home in
Chapala will be an additional option on the Post Life form. There
are implications to this for those who have already filed Post Life
information with LCS. If you wish to change funeral homes, and
you wish to be cremated, and you already have the “protocolized”
document naming the San Miguel Funeral home as the crematoria,
then a new document will be required. Inquire in the office after
March 15 for more details.
Keep in mind that it is entirely up to you to work with a funeral
home for any and all of your arrangements. The Post Life form
indicates which funeral home you are working with and your desire
for cremation or burial. It is critically important for those people here
who are without spouse or close kin, and wish to be cremated, to

have the proper paperwork in place before you die. It is less
critical for couples, though it is not a bad idea if you want to be
prepared.
To be clear, the Post Life Program is a repository of
information that LCS holds on your behalf documenting
important details that facilitate paperwork required when
foreigners die in Mexico. Other details useful for those finding
themselves involved in managing the initial details your death
are also documented. Think of the program as a back up source
of information “just in case”. The program also facilitates the
process of getting a document granting legal permission for a
funeral home to cremate your remains. You do not need to be
an LCS member to participate in the program.
Life member, Betty Schrader, a pioneer and Manager of the
of the Post Life program for over 15 years has indicated her
desire to step down. LCS is extremely grateful to Betty for her
dedication and patience. The Post Life Program at LCS has
become a community institution in its own right and serves
thousands of people lakeside. Needless to say we are looking
for the appropriate candidate to carry on Betty’s good work.
Qualifications include a compassionate and patient personality.
Since we are beginning to computerize the data, computer
skills are also necessary. If you wish to be considered for this
very important position please contact me, Terry Vidal, in the
LCS Service Office.
Finally, results of the LCS survey are beginning to be
analyzed. We thank those of you who participated. The 716
responses will garner a lot of useful information, though it will
take time to analyze the results accurately. On the surface I can
tell you that the results indicate that LCS is doing a GREAT job.
Congratulations to all of the volunteers and staff who help make
LCS a success and a relevant part of the Lakeside community.
Thank you to Dr. David Truly for his hard work, Richard Rhoda
for his perseverance and the entire ad hoc Membership
Committee for their commitment to this project. Actual results
will be highlighted next month.

Saw you in the Ojo 81

Celebrate Six Decades of

Tuesday LCS Learning Seminars

Children’s Art in Ajijic

(via TED Internet podcasts - for LCS members - at noon)

Join us Saturday, March 3rd at Noon for the official dedication of the
new LCS Children’s Art Program mural, located at the back patio
of LCS. Painted by Jesus V. Lopez Vega and Javier Zaragoza,
both well-known artists and students of the program, the mural is a
unique collaborative effort and labor of love honoring the Children’s
Art Program.

6th - Chaired by Fred Harland featuring economist Loretta
Napoleoni speaking on “The Economics of Terrorism.”
Napoleoni details her talk with the secretive Italian Red Brigades
- an experience that sparked a lifelong interest in terrorism.
A behind-the-scenes look at complex economics, revealing a
connection between money laundering and the Patriot Act.

“In this last half century
the
impact
of
the
Program has changed
the economy here and
created a movement of
art in Ajijic. The purpose
of the mural is to tell the
story of local art in Ajijic
and to keep the legacy
alive,” stated
Jesus
Lopez Vega.

13th - Chaired by Ron Mullenaux featuring Daniel Goleman,
who asks why we aren’t more compassionate more of the time.
Goleman, psychologist and award-winning author of Emotional
Intelligence, challenges traditional measures of intelligence as a
predictor of life success.

According
to
Javier
Zaragoza, “What I can
see now, after 60 years is that this program is getting better and
better. From this current generation of children in the Program I
believe we may have an internationally known artist from Ajijic!”
Since 1956 when it was started by Neill James, the Children’s
Art Program has engaged thousands of Mexican children in
exploration of their creative talents. The Program has produced
many well known local artists and helped to position Ajijic as an art
colony. The mural honors the Program and the three women who
enriched the lives of so many young Mexicans.
Neill James, a writer and philanthropist arriving from the United
States in 1943, became a patron of education and cottage industry
from Chapala to Ajijic. Under her sponsorship, several students
were able to pursue a fine arts education. She started one of
Mexico’s first public libraries where children were encouraged to
read and paint.
Angelita Aldana Padilla taught reading and art in the Biblioteca
Publica started by Neill James. She served the children for nearly
30 years.
Mildred Boyd, a 25 year resident of Lakeside from the United
States, rejuvenated the Children’s Art Program in 1990 and
continued to lead and expand the program until 2010.
This mural is made possible as a result of the creative collaboration
and time of Ajijic artists, Jesus V. Lopez Vega and Javier Zaragoza.
LCS also thanks the Ajijic Society of the Arts (ASA) for their
financial support.
Today, the LCS Children’s Art Program continues to flourish due
to dedicated volunteers made up of a true cross-cultural cast.
The Children’s Art Program is free, and all children are welcome.
Hours: 10:00 a.m. to noon every Saturday, rain or shine. Tell your
neighbors and friends. For more information email: childrensart@
lakechapalasociety.org.

82

El Ojo del Lago / March 2012

20th - Chaired by Fred Harland featuring physicist Brain Greene
speaking on “String Theory made Simple.” Greene, author of
The Fabric of the Cosmos, and a proponent of superstring
theory, the idea that minuscule strands of energy vibrating in a
higher dimensional space-time create every particle and force
in the universe.
27th - Chaired by Ron Mullenaux featuring Julian Assange: Why
the world needs WikiLeaks. Internet activist, Assange serves as
spokesperson for WikiLeaks, a controversial, volunteer-driven
website that publishes and comments on leaked documents
alleging government and corporate misconduct.

SPANISH CLASSES
Term 2 begins on Monday, March 5th and will cover seven
weeks of study. Due to Easter holidays, these classes will take
eight calendar weeks and end on April 2nd.
LCS uses the Warren Hardy Spanish language course which
is designed for the adult student. The classes are held at the
Wilkes Center, an adjunct to the LCS campus.
Registration for classes occurs in the LCS office weekdays on
Tuesdays & Fridays from 10 AM to 2 PM and during the week
prior to any new term on the blue umbrella patio at LCS.
Class schedules, LCS membership, tuition for the seven week
term, policies, materials needed, and additional information can
be found on the LCS website.

Canada's New Ambassador to Mexico to Speak at the
Nueva Posada - 3 PM, Friday March 23rd
The Canadian Consulate in Guadalajara invites Canadians to
come out to hear Her Excellency Sara Hradecky speak. The
Ambassador arrived in Mexico November 2011 and this will be
her first public event in Chapala. To view her full biography,
please visit: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/mexicomexique/offices-bureaux/ambbio-bioamb.aspx?view=d
Nueva Posada will offer a no-host bar for social hour from 3:00
PM. Ambassador Hradecky will begin speaking at 4:00 PM.
Please come and meet the new Ambassador.

We are currently trying to get the video catalogs updated and make them more
user friendly. If you have any suggestions, please take the time to “Let Us
Know What You Think” on one of the pre-printed forms next to our suggestion
box on the bulletin board with the new additions. The SERIES CATALOG has
been updated to include all of the series that we have in our inventory, VHS
and DVD. It will be updated each month. That’s the orange catalog.
Some of the new additions for March are:
A great new series DOWNTON ABBEY a sprawling and lavish Edwardian
mansion that needs a heir. PBS production with a rating of 9.0 on scale of 10.
HOT COFFEE An eye opening documentary exposing how corporations
spend millions of dollars on propaganda campaigns to distort our views of
lawsuits. You may think you know the case of the woman who sued Mc
Donalds over spilled coffee. But, do you? This and three other cases tear
apart the conventional wisdom about “jackpot justice” Rated 7.7 on scale of
10.
A romantic comedy with a little fantasy thrown in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is
about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes
a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from
their own is better. Woody Allen wrote and directed. 7.8 on scale of 10
THAT SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP A dramatization that traces former U.K.
prime minister Tony Blair’s relationships with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Starring Dennis Quaid and Michael Sheen. Rated 6.8 on scale of 10, but, I
think it is better than that.
Set in the high-stakes world of the financial industry MARGIN CALL is an
entangling thriller involving the key players at an investment firm during one
perilous 24-hour period in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. Starring
Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. 7.2 on scale of 10
All of these and other new additions for March are reviewed on the LCS web
page and in the smaller white catalog at the Video Library.
If you have VHS tapes that you would like to have transferred to DVD
discs, we will be happy to do it for you.

Casi Nuevo Thrift Shop
We need household items such as small appliances, pots, pans, lamps,
paintings and furniture – just about anything besides clothing.
Volunteer sales people are WANTED! We offer flexible hours and have a
great crew. We also offer great discounts for the volunteers.
The thrift shop income is essential to 3 charities:
• School for the Deaf in Jocotepec has ~100 kids with multiple disorders.
They provide meals, audiologist, speech therapist, computers, and books,
• Have Hammers… Will Travel is a school that teaches kids the basics in
carpentry, painting, welding and other trades for their future.
• The LCS Education Program includes a scholarship program, English
classes, remedial elementary summer school classes, a Spanish lending
library, a weekly children’s art program and much more.
As you can see, we are devoted to education - which is why we are so
passionate about making our store a success, and we need your help. Drop
off items at the store in Riberas del Pilar or the drop box at LCS. We will pick
up larger items at no charge.
Please contact Jacqueline Smith at 766-1303 or email smithjacqueline55@
gmail.com for more information.

Saw you in the Ojo 83

Fiesta Latina A Success

FILM AFICIONADOS
Each film celebrates the brilliance of women
March 1 12:00 NOON
To be announced immediately after the Academy Awards
presentation.
March 8 2:00 PM.
LE GOUT DES AUTRES (THE TASTE OF OTHERS)
France 2000 An international comedy of manners set
in Provence. This is one of the most intelligent films ever
made.
March 15 12:00 NOON.
POTICHE France 2010 Another international comedy
set in provincial France. With Catherine Deneuve and
Gerard Depardieu and the great Fabrice Luchini.
March 22 2:00 PM.
WOMEN ON THE SIXTH FLOOR France 2011
Believe it or not, another international comedy set in 1960
Paris. Starring the inimitable Fabrice Luchini (see above)
backed up by a great supporting cast from Spain.

A very successful fundraiser for
the Lake Chapala Society Community
Education Program over 100,000
pesos were raised. A day filled with
excellent food, drink, and lively
entertainment was made possible
by the many wonderful volunteers
who gave of their time and talents to
produce an event that exceeded the
goals of the LCS Board..
Restaurants, B&B's, boutique
hotels, beach resorts and many local
artists, artisans, and service providers
donated quality products and services
that
garnered
bids
surpassing
expectations for the Silent Auction.
Roberto of Roberto's Restaurant created an imaginative and
flavorful Latin buffet of appetizers, entrees and desserts.
Entertainment included dance performances by popular
Guadalajara tango dancers, Juan Rosa & Anita, cuban salsa by
Alberto & Graciella Costales, sizzling cumbia by Francisco and Judit
Rajhathy and the Orquestra Tipica de Chapala led by the charismatic
Javier Raygoza. What a day!

March 29 2:00 PM.
ELENA Russia 2012 This new Russian film won the
Special Jury Prize at Cannes and has been a big hit in
Europe. It has yet to find a distributor in the USA. This
gripping noir-ish offering is unlike any Russian film you've
ever seen.
ALL FILMS IN THE SALA. CURRENT LCS MEMBERSHIP
CARDS REQUIRED.
NO DOGS ALLOWED

WhydoLiberalsandConservativesDisagree?
Tuesday, March 20, at 2 PM in the LCS Sala. Dr. Richard
Rhoda will present current research on the very basic
underlying human values that explain why these two groups
disagree. Free lecture, open to the public, Come early;
seating is limited.

“The Time Has Come”
Storytellers, the popular fundraiser that benefits the Jim Collums
Education Fund, will present its next program in the Sala at LCS on
Tuesday, March 13, at 4 pm. Come early to socialize; the cash bar
opens at 3:30 pm.
Original works by Bonnie Phillips, Bob Tennison and Jim Collums
will be presented. “The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of
many things. . . “
-- Lewis Carroll

is $19.95 a year renewal for as long as
you own the MAGICJACK. Call: 7652326. $650 pesos.
FOR SALE: Computer monitor (19”)
like new. Used one month. $500 pesos
or best offer. ALSO - DELL U.S. Keyboard - $200 pesos. Contact: Allen McGill.
FOR SALE: Wireless Router. Manufacturer: D Link Wireless. Model: D1264. $25 US. Call: (376) 766 2682.
FOR SALE: Lexmark - 310 Series
Photo Jet printer New and has manual
and all paperwork, $600 pesos. Call:
765-4590
FOR SALE: New black ink cartridge,
open by mistake. HP C6602A $100 pesos Call: Lorena at 765-3676